


Daughter

by TeddyTheCardioGoddess



Category: Station 19 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Family, Father-Daughter Relationship, Original Character(s), Romance, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:00:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 48,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25245778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeddyTheCardioGoddess/pseuds/TeddyTheCardioGoddess
Summary: Olivia Sullivan is just about a normal teenager, and her entire life it was just her and her father, Robert Sullivan. When they move back into Seattle, the city where she was born and raised, Olivia meets Andy Herrera. Even though everybody knows Andy and Robert do not get along, Olivia can see beneath the surface, and maybe discover her father can be happy once again, after all these years. Rating might change later. SURRERA IS ENDGAME.
Relationships: Andy Herrera & Robert Sullivan, Andy Herrera/Robert Sullivan
Comments: 39
Kudos: 81





	1. If Only You Knew

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everyone!  
> I am so excited to post the first chapter of my new multi-chapter fic.  
> I hope you enjoy and leave your thoughts!  
> Story title from the song Daughter by Sleeping at Last.

If only you knew  
The sunlight shines a little brighter  
The weight of the world's a little lighter  
The stars lean in a little closer  
All because of you

-Daughter by Sleeping at Last

********  
15 years ago

Robert can’t bring himself to go to the place he calls home. 

He knows that when he finally enters, he will be surrounded by her. The smell of her perfume on the T-shirt she probably left crumpled up on the bed. The sight of her smiling from their wedding photo, holding his hand. The sound of her favorite George Micheal CD she left inside the reader before heading outside to start her work day. 

He can’t do it, he can’t go back home. Because the moment he steps out of Seattle Grace, he will have to start learning how to keep living his life with Claire not in them. 

And never, in a million years, Robert Sullivan had thought he would have to do it before the age of 80. When he said the words till death do us apart, he imagined a house full of grandchildren and a porch swing, and he was going to keep his oath, for better or for worse. 

Right now, sitting in the waiting area of the dark hospital, he can still pretend. Pretend that he is not a widower. Pretend that there is a chance that she will come back to him. The love of his life, the mother of his daughter. Pretend that there is still a woman wearing a wedding band that matches the one he keeps spinning around his finger. 

Other than the clothes and the pictures, he has another thing to remember her by. The most amazing little thing he has ever seen in his life. The baby girl who is running around the hospital’s waiting room, on her chubby legs and with a big smile, completely unaware that her mother will never come and pick her up again. 

When the doctors came and told him that they have done everything they could, the first thought that crossed his mind was that his daughter won’t have her mother around in every step of her life, big or small. Claire won’t be there to see her on her first day of kindergarten, or take a picture with her on her high school graduation. She won’t be around to fight with her daughter about her first boyfriend, and she won’t be there to be a shoulder to cry on when he breaks Olivia’s heart. She won’t be there to see Robert walking their daughter down the aisle. 

From this moment on, he has to raise Olivia on his own. He will have to teach her to be a kind person, and how to share. He will have to explain to her that life isn’t fair sometimes. He will have to deal with her terrible two, horrible three, and much worse sixteen. 

He asked Ripley to bring his daughter over to the hospital. He is not able to look at him right now, probably won’t be able to look at him for far longer, but his daughter knows and trusts his best friend, and other than his wife, Lucas is all the family he has. 

Now that his wife is gone, Ripley is the only person he has. 

There is a red headed nurse who seems quite fond of his little one year old trouble maker. The nurse leans down to his daughter, and they look together into a filthy mirror hung on the wall behind the nurse station, that fascinated his child for an unknown reason. 

He gathers up whatever little strength he has in him, and walks toward her, clenching the small bag of Claire’s personal belongings in his hand, whatever the hospital staff was able to find on her body. His daughter flashes a smile at him, with only half of her mouth full of teeth. 

He looks at her, oblivious completely to the fact that her life has changed forever, took a terrible turn only because a drunk man couldn’t bother to take a cab back home. She is unaware of the fact that someone robbed her from some of the most precious moments in life because he thought alcohol didn’t affect him as much as it does on other people. 

“Mommy.” The girl says, and Robert can’t help the tears rolling down his cheeks. 

The nurse playing with Olivia places a reassuring hand on his back, and whispers. “I hope that’s OK I occupied your daughter for a while. I just thought you could use a few minutes to yourself. I am so sorry for your loss.”

She walks away back to covering her workload before he has a chance to answer, and even if he did, what would he say? Thank you? He lost the love of his life, it isn’t like he won an award. 

He looks at their reflection in the mirror. Him, a dirty firefighter who seems as if he has aged fifteen years in a day. And down by his ankles stands a one year old, a spitting image of a mother who is no longer alive. A mess of short curly hair and a dimpled smile, running around him on wobbly legs. 

She stops in front of him, mesmerized by the reflection of herself. She reaches out her little hand and touches the dirty mirror, leaving sticky finger marks all over, as if she is trying to sense herself. She looks up to his image in the mirror, whispers “Daddy.” Then she looks back at herself and giggles, saying “Livia” over and over again, not able to pronounce the first letter of her own name yet, no matter how hard Claire and Robert tried to teach her. 

Robert bends down to his knees and envelopes her in a hug. His girl reaches to his face and wipes the tears off of his face with her tiny hands, intuitive as ever. 

“It is just you and I from now on, baby girl. I think it is time to go.” Robert picks his daughter off of the floor, and she rests her head against his shoulder. 

They take a cab home, since he came in his station’s aid car, and while Olivia sleeps soundlessly against him, too exhausted by the unexpected turn this day took, he thinks that it might be better that she is so young, she won’t remember anything from her mother. 

Because if she had to lose her mother, if it is some kind of a twisted plan God has for them, then at least she didn’t know her. Because if only she knew Claire, the lengths she would go for her family, the way she could see the light in every dark situation, her selflessness and her caring for everything and everyone around her. It would have been so much harder to say goodbye. It would have been as hard on his daughter as it is devastating for him now, and not in a million years, he wishes his daughter this kind of agonizing pain. 

If only she knew. 

********

“This was the longest shift to ever been done by any firefighter on this planet.” Vic huffs out as she hangs her duffel bag on her left shoulder. She hops off the stairs two by two, and stops right next to Andy, who is leaning against the front desk for support. Andy feels as if her legs cannot carry the weight of her own body anymore. “And I wasn’t the one to almost drown, nearly get infected by some filthy gutter water, or have the new captain hate my guts. You probably feel way worse than I do. ” 

The members of B shift came and took over the station over an hour ago, yet Vic and Andy lingered around after everyone else was already long gone. They just sat at the beanery, too tired to move or talk, every muscle in their bodies aching from the stress put on it during the day long shift. It took them over half an hour to talk each other into changing from their uniform to their own clothes. 

“Preaching to the choir.” Andy says as she rolls her car keys between her fingers. “Do you need a ride home?” 

“It depends, are we daytime drinking?” 

“What do you think?” Andy sends a dead serious face her way. 

“That you look like you could use a drink. Or maybe ten.” Vic guesses. 

“Yep.” Andy agrees. “Come on, I will have Maya pick something out for us while we are on our way.”

“Tell her not to get that disgusting cheap scotch she seems to like, God knows why.” Vic yells her way as her fingers move frantically across the screen of her smartphone. 

Andy is invested in the text, explicitly describing to Maya what she can or cannot buy, God forbid she gets the kind of alcohol Vic refuses to drink. That will ignite a fight for sure. Her thoughts are somewhere else, trying to figure out what Maya has in her little apartment, or what she will be able to buy that will keep everyone satisfied, so she doesn’t notice the walk in who enters the station until she speaks. 

“Hey, do you work here?” A teenage girl asks. She looks around sixteen, maybe a fifteen year old looking a little older for her age.

“Yeah, but we were just on our way out.” Andy answers. “Can we help you with anything?” 

“I am looking for my dad.” She dresses like every other girl in her age group, with over-sized T shirts printed with the logo of a band she probably has never heard one song by, and some kind of branded white sneakers. She has braces, and a school backpack hung over one of her shoulders. She appears more at ease than more people are when they walk into a fire station. Most people walk in when they are in some kind of a medical emergency, or at least have a loved one who is. Yet this girl looks calm, even board, Andy might say. 

“Is he hurt? Did something happen to him? If he is missing, you have to file a missing person report at the police station. It is just two blocks down the streets and then you take a left. You can’t miss it.” Vic spits out quickly as she passes the girl and stands by the door. “If you need anything else, I am sure anyone who is still working will be able to help you. They are very easy to find, they just wear uniform.” Vic points down at her own clothing, the jeans and army style jacket emphasizing she has clocked out already.

“That won’t be necessary, but thank you.” 

“I hope you will find him.” Andy tries to smile at the stranger, even if the fatigue is polling the ends of her lips downwards unwillingly. She turns her back to the girl as she bids “Have a nice day!” 

“Hey dad!” The girl yells. 

Andy and Vic both turn back to face her. Is she mentally unwell? Do they need to get some help?

The door to the captain’s office opens, and Sullivan walks out of it, a stern look on his face, as usual. When he sees the mysterious teenager who stands in the front of the entrance his whole face lights up, and if Andy didn’t think it was absolutely impossible, she would have said that he even smiles her way. 

“Hey, Livia.” He greets the stranger. The girl wraps her arm around his middle, and he puts a reassuring hand on her back. She is tall for a woman, probably an inch or two taller than Andy is, but she still gets only to her father’s shoulders. “How was your first day at the new school?”

Both Andy and Vic watch the situation unravel before them with their eyes tear open, not able to look away. 

“Fine.” The girl huffs out. “You didn’t tell your co-workers you have a daughter? Are you ashamed of me or something?” She untangles herself from the hug and crosses her arms on her chest, in a manner obviously meant to convey a message of annoyance. 

Was she that bad when she was a teenager? Andy thinks to herself. She bets that if she asks her father, he will claim she was much, much worse. 

“Oh, I am sure the problem is not you. Our Captain didn’t really tell us anything personal about himself.” Vic tries to reassure her, which seems to only get the girl, whose name Andy couldn’t really catch, more upset. 

“Sir, with all due respect, you have a daughter?” Andy can’t help but ask, the curiosity taking the better part of her. She would never, in a million years, have guessed it herself. He didn’t really strike her as the parental type, but now when she sees them standing side by side, the resemblance is clear. They both have the same high cheekbones, and the same brown eyes, even if she can see some passion in the eyes of his daughter, yet no fire in his. She inherited his height, and his lean body type. Andy guesses that the hair is all her mother, a head full of black, thick curls going everywhere. The daughter has a smile on as well, another feature in which she probably takes after her mother. 

“Yes, you will have to excuse my daughter. Apparently she left her manners in Montana.” He apologizes on her behalf, and gives his child a stern look.

“Yeah, hey. I am Olivia. Olivia Sullivan, but everyone calls me Liv. Well, everyone other than my father.” 

“I am Andy, and this is Vic.” Andy points at her friend, who is still in such shock that her mouth hangs a little open. “I guess we should welcome you to the station, and to Seattle.” 

“Well, thank you, Hughes, Herrera.” Sullivan dismisses them. “You can definitely go now. My daughter probably has some homework she has to catch up on, considering she switched schools in the middle of her sophomore year.” He puts a hand on Liv’s back as he escort her up to the conference room, where she can sit and do her school work in relative silence. 

Andy puts her fingers underneath Vic’s chin, and closes it. Her jaw drops open again, before she says “The uptight new captain has a moody teenager. I did not see that coming.”

“I know.” Andy agrees with the same amount of surprise in her voice. 

Olivia Sullivan. Who knew.


	2. The Beanery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone!  
> Thank you so much for supporting my new fic! Means the world to me.  
> Just to let you know, per request, my fics are now going up to Wattpad as well, so if you are more comfortable reading there go ahead I guess?  
> I will appreciate your thoughts so so so much!  
> Hope you enjoy!

“You would not believe what Herrera and I found out!” Vic exclaims when she walks into the packed beanery, as Andy shuffles right behind her. 

“Dean colored Warren’s entire batch of white laundry pink again?” Travis asks, piling food on top of his plate. 

The entire kitchen smells amazing, and Andy can see every kind of existing breakfast item spread along the table. Whomever was in charge of breakfast today outdid themselves, and apparently everyone else knew about it beforehand, since every member of the shift already sits excitedly by the table. 

Everyone excluding their new captain, of course. 

“I swear it wasn't me!” Dean claims as Ben gives him an outrageous look. 

“Why would I know anything about the color of Warren’s laundry?” Vic questions. Both Andy and Vic find a seat at the table, opposite to each other, and Andy has her back to the entrance. She picks up one of the last two clean plates left, and serves herself with a little bit of every item on the table, which eventually forms a little mountain of food on her plate. 

Well, breakfast is still the most important meal of the day, isn’t it?

“I don’t know!” Montgomery tries to defend himself. “I thought we were playing some kind of guessing game, and I said the first thing that came into my mind.” 

“When don’t you say the first thing that comes into your mind, Montgomery?” Maya asks as she shoves another forkful of food into her mouth. 

Everyone around the table nods their agreement, before Andy says “Fine, guess away, but I bet none of you will get to the right answer.” 

That seems to trigger each and every one of her friends, who starts to throw their assumptions around the table. If there is one thing that the members of station 19 do not back away from, is a bit of healthy competition. 

“The new captain assigned Travis for a month long toilet cleaning duty?” Miller tries his luck, which earns him a piece of scrambled egg thrown in his direction, the courtesy of the same firefighter he was just talking about. 

“Nope.” Vic replays. “But it does involve Sullivan, so I guess you get a half a point for that.” That makes Dean throw a hand in the air triumphantly. 

“Are we playing for money?” Maya asks as she chews. 

Andy sighs and puts her fork down in despair. “Again, there is no way any of you will guess it correctly, so there is no point in betting your money on it, you are just going to lose it.”

“I am willing to put twenty on Herrera finally punching the guy.” Jack fishes a crumpled up bill out of his pocket and slams it pointedly on the table. 

“I have a ten.” Maya joins the bet.

Andy places her elbows on the table and nestles her head between her palms, as she hears her entire team members piling up money on the fact that she may or may not have thrown a fist at their new captain. “Guys!” She yells as the chaos of loud voices gets out of control. “I wasn’t physically violent toward Sullivan in any way.”

“Yes!” Warren exclaims. “Bishop, Gibson, pay up.” He reaches for the bills lying on the table in front of the very not pleased Maya and Jack. 

“Thank you for the vote of confidence, Warren.” 

“Anytime, Herrera.” Ben says as he counts the money in his hands, then shoves it deep into his pocket. 

“Seriously, why would you think I have punched him? I am not a violent person.” 

Andy receives a snort coming from Maya’s way, and a murmured “Yeah, OK, whatever you say. So I guess you almost running over Ryan’s police car, while you were driving the truck, on multiple different occasions, were all just unfortunate accidents.” 

“Exactly.” Andy approves as she drops more food into her mouth. 

“You just seem to pick up a fight with Sullivan in every chance you get. Excuse me for thinking it transformed from verbal contempt to a physical brawl.” Jack says. 

“We just don’t agree. Ever. On anything.” Andy says, spitting little bits of half chewed food on Vic who sits right in front of her. 

Vic wipes her face with the back of her hand. “Thank you Herrera. Now, as much as I would like to hear more about your disputes with Sullivan, nobody guessed it currently yet.” 

“I am out.” Warren calls, picking up his dishes and making his way to the sink. 

“Sullivan has a teenage daughter.” Andy blurts out. She scans the room with her eyes, and the reactions she gets from every one of her friends are priceless. They are all frozen, their eyes wide open and each of them look in a different state of shock.

“Told you you will never guess it.” Andy shrugs, before she takes a sip of her coffee. 

“Pay up, Warren.” Maya calls across the room, and stretches out her palm for Ben to put the bills back in it. Ben huffs out his dissatisfaction, and pulls out the money he had just put away in his pocket. 

“What were you betting on now?” Andy asks, confused.

“Well…” Warren starts to say, but he is stalling, and Andy knows that whatever it is, she is not going to like it. “I thought that you had slept with Sullivan before he became the captain of this station.” 

Andy spits the coffee she had in her mouth straight back into the mug, to the sound of “Ew” coming from all around the table. “I am sorry, come again?” 

Great. There goes her morning drink. 

“I don’t know. It just made sense to me. This is the reason you hate each other so much, so no one will know that you used to be lovers.” Ben continues with his refuted theory. 

“First of all, if I had slept with him, Maya would have already known by now.” Andy says.

“Thank you Andy, I have said the exact same thing.” Maya calls as she rolls the bills and stuff them into her uniform. 

“Second,” Andy continues, ignoring the fact that she had been interrupted. “Why would I come in here and announce that I have slept with the captain? If I have done it, which I did not, I would like to keep it to myself. And finally, what the hell is going on at Grey Sloan Memorial that your first thought is that I had sex with the captain?” 

“Oh, believe me, you don’t even want to know.” Ben mutters as he washes his dishes and puts it on the rack to dry. 

“As much as I like talking about Herrera’s love life, today and any day.” Travis rolls his eyes. “Can we get back to the subject? Sullivan has a teenage daughter?” 

“Thank you!” Vic slams her hand on the table. “At least someone gives me the reaction I was looking for.” 

“It is as if the Grinch had a baby.” A tremor goes through Dean. “I bet she had never celebrated Christmas in her life.” 

“I am in. I have 30.” Maya hands Miller the money she has earned from Jack and Ben. 

“I don’t know, I don’t think so.” Andy doesn’t know why she is coming to the defense of this girl who is practically a stranger, but she feels a need to be on her side nonetheless. “She looked perfectly normal, like any other teenager. More normal than I was when I was in high school, let me tell you that.” 

“What do you think is his story? Do you think he is married?” Vic asks. Another thing that the members of station 19 do not back away from, is a little bit of gossip. 

“Maybe he abducted her.” Maya guesses. 

“Very funny. I don’t know. Maybe he had a wife that left him because he never smiles, and left the daughter with him.” Andy contributes her own assumption to the mix. 

“Herrera.” She hears a stern voice coming from behind her. 

Oh no. Now if anyone is going to be on toilet duty for the rest of the month, it is going to be her. 

“I do not appreciate you talking about my personal life at all, and about my daughter specifically, are we clear?” Andy turns around in her seat, and meets eye to eye with a very furious Sullivan, standing at the entrance to the beanery, his arms crossed around his chest and the vein in his forehead pulsing. 

“Yes, sir.” Andy replays softly, as she looks down. 

“And since you are all so interested, yes, I have a daughter. Her name is Olivia, and her mother, my wife, passed away some time ago. Now that you all got the information you desired about my private life, clear this mess up. Line up in five.” 

Everyone around her starts to pick up the dirty dishes and put away the leftover food, almost frantically. The silence as they do it is a strong testimony to the fact that they are embarrassed, like a kid caught stealing the last cookie out of the jar. 

As Andy wipes down the dirty table, she lifts her eyes up to see Sullivan giving her one last look, before turning around and going down the stairs. 

She will not be able to forget the look on his face. 

No matter what she does, she only manages to disappoint him.  
***************

Andy rushes up the stairs to the beanery. 

She is famished, to a point where her stomach growls and makes very loud, very embarrassing noises. It has been a very long day that started very early in the morning in the aid car. For some mysterious reason Jack, her partner in crime for the day, called it a day, declaring he is not hungry. 

Her plan is to step into the kitchen, go through the cabinet and eat the first thing she doesn’t have to make on her own. Simple and easy. Yet when she walks in, she smells the scents of cooking and frying coming to her nose, even though she is certain the team members had already had their dinner. A meal she had to skip thanks to a four year old who decided that jumping off a swing and onto a concrete surface was a fine idea. 

Over the stove stands Olivia, mixing something in a pot, her tongue sticking out in concentration. 

“What are you doing?” Andy asks the teenager. 

“Oh, I will clean everything up once I am done, I promise!” Liv says, never looking at her. As Andy comes closer to the stove, she sees there are multiple pots and pans bubbling away, and she can see the 16 years old tending to them all with experience. 

“Why are you cooking in our kitchen?” 

“Because this is the only way to get my father to eat something that is not a banana or a granola bar.” Olivia shakes the salt and the pepper over one of the sauce pans, then grabs a spoon to taste test it. The girl nods in satisfaction, which only makes Andy’s stomach roar louder. 

“For some reason, he doesn't eat with us, even though I have invited him to.” 

“Yeah I know, this is why I am here. Oh, I am sorry, you must be starving.” Liv points out. “There is plenty of food if you want to join my dad and I.” 

Andy hesitates before she answers. “I don’t think this is a good idea.” 

“I know that you and my father don’t get along. But I can tell you are hungry, otherwise you won’t be wandering around here just an hour after your peers finished their dinner. Well, unless you want to do some emotional eating on your own, which I don’t think is the case, because you could have walked away the moment you saw me. By the way, even if it is the case, you should know I am not judging.” The girl rumbles on.

Andy thinks to herself that she has to give the girl more credit than she does. Liv is an observant young woman, who is compassionate and caring to the only parent she has, something that she hasn’t always been when she was a teenager. 

And maybe Sullivan deserves the credit, for raising her this way.

“My father taught me to never let someone go hungry, not as long as I can remedy this so easily. We truly have more food than we can eat, and I can give you a plate and send you to eat alone if you want to, but I really prefer it if you will come and eat with us. He needs an ally, someone in here that will be able look after him when I can’t. Even if he will never admit to it.” 

Andy still has her doubts. Her mind telling her that she better have nothing to do with her captain or with his daughter. Her belly on the other hand, just tells her that the food smells amazing, and looks even better, and reminds her that she hasn’t eaten anything since this morning. 

“Taste it.” Liv encourages. She puts a little bit of everything on a plate, then sticks a fork in the food and mixes everything around. “You have to have a bit of everything in every bite.” 

The girl brings the fork to Andy’s lips, her hand supporting it from the bottom to prevent any food being spilled on the floor. It makes Andy feel like a child who is incompetent to eat by herself, but it also makes her feel good, being taken care of for a change. Even if the person who takes care of her is a sixteen years old girl. 

When the food hits her taste buds, she closes her eyes and hums in satisfaction. “This is amazing! What is it?” Andy asks before she even has a chance to swallow. 

“Chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes and a lot of white gravy.” Liv answers, and Andy can really hear the pride in her voice. 

“More.” Andy demands. 

“Fine.” Liv pleases, as she pours a spoonful of mashed potatoes to the plate and drizzles it with the gravy. “But you are going to spoil your appetite.”

“Are you sure you are from Montana and not from Texas?” 

Liv laughs at Andy’s retorts. “Yes, I am sure. I have never been to Texas, but my mom was born and raised there. Dad always said that it was mom’s favorite dish, so it was pretty much the first thing I have learned how to make. It used to make him sad at the beginning, I think, but I kept making it anyway. He got used to it eventually, and I really like it. It makes me feel like I know her on some level, even if my dad doesn’t talk about her much.” 

“Where did you learn to cook like that?” Andy asks with her mouth full, in an attempt to lighten the atmosphere. 

“I learnt from an amazing thing called the internet, you might have heard about it.” Liv bites. “Well, my mom died when I was just a baby, as I said, and my dad was never really around. You are a firefighter, so you know the hours are crazy more often than not, and not really leave you extra time to cook dinner. And don’t tell him that I have said it, but he can’t really cook anyway.” Liv giggles, and for the first time this evening Andy sees her as the sixteen years old that she is. Life has obviously made her more mature than her actual age. 

“So I had no other choice than to learn how to do it myself, otherwise I would have probably starved to death by now. I started at thirteen, and I realized that I really like it, and I am also quite good at it.” Liv pulls out three plates from the cabinet and starts to stack big pieces of steak on them. “And it feels good, you know, doing something for him, after everything he has done and every sacrifice he had to make for me.” 

“Yeah, I know. I lost my mom when I was eleven. My dad was the captain of this station, so believe me when I say I know what it is like to feel like you are growing up completely independent.” She reaches with the free hand into the neck of her shirt, and finds the necklace she never takes off. She fiddles with it a bit, tracing the letter “E” with her thumb. “I have never really learned how to cook though.” Andy admits. 

“So what exactly did you eat your entire adolescence years?” 

“My nutrition included mainly Lucky Charms, straight out of the box, cinnamon roll pop tarts and McDonald’s meals I used to share with my best friend Ryan.” Andy shrugs. “I have always wanted to learn, just never got there, not with my crazy schedule.” 

“Sounds healthy.” Both of the girls laugh, before Liv suggests. “Well, if you still want to learn how to cook I can teach you. It seems like I am about to spend quite a lot of my free time in the station anyway, if I wish to see my dad every once in a while, so I can give you some lessons while you are not on calls.” 

“I sense a ‘but’ coming my way.” 

“I want something in return.” 

“Learning how to cut deals from a young age, I see.” Andy tries to stall time. Is she supposed to encourage this kind of behavior? “What do you want?” 

It is not as if Andy is her mother. She is not the one who is supposed to teach her wrong from right. 

“I teach you how to cook, and in return you can teach me how to be a firefighter.” Liv crosses her arms around her chest, waiting for an answer, and in that particular moment she looks exactly like her father. 

“You want to be a firefighter, uh?”

Liv nods, and Andy can see herself in the young girl. She can see the teenager she was, dreaming of following the footsteps of the man who raised her all by himself. 

“You have yourself a deal.” Andy declares, and reaches out her hand for Olivia to shake, as if they were signing some kind of a treaty. 

“Wait, aren’t we supposed to sign it with blood?” That earns Liv a confused look, which ends only when Liv cracks up laughing. “Kidding, relax.” 

Andy can’t help but liking this girl already, no matter how she feels about her father. 

Liv finishes serving the food on three different plates before she calls.”Now come and help me get those plates downstairs to the captain’s office. My dad will never come up here to eat.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone!  
> I know an update has been long awaited for and I am sorry about it!  
> Just so you know, all my fics are up on AO3, ff.net and Wattpad.  
> I hope you enjoy this chapter, and leave me a comment with your thoughts if you feel like it.

“This is really good.” Vic says as she chews, pointing with her fork down towards her plate. “Did you say you made it?” 

“Sure…” Andy tries to lie, but she can’t sell it, not when both Vic and Maya know her well enough to remember the time she tried to crack an egg, and ended up spilling the entire thing straight on the floor.

“No way.” Maya catches her in her lie and shoves the last piece of dumpling into her mouth with her bare hands. 

“You are so classy, Maya.” Vic teases her fellow firefighter, who licks every one of her fingers clean.

“OK fine, it wasn’t me. Liv made it.” Andy breaks under the pressure. “But I helped!” 

“By saying that you helped you mean she did the entire thing, because you burned your first attempt at sauteing the vegetables.” Maya points out. “I was around, I saw you struggling. It was hilarious, by the way.” 

“Thank you, Maya.” Andy rolls her eyes. “I am trying to learn, I really do. But it is just so hard.” She breathes out loudly and slides further down the chair she is sitting in. 

“I really don’t care who made them.” Vic admits, picking crumbs off of her plate with her fork, making sure she didn’t miss a spot. “Just tell your new best friend she has to cook for us more often. I mean, if she is always around anyway, she can at least feed us all.” 

“Or maybe she should just feed the three of us.” Maya suggests, clearing their empty dishes into the sink. “If the boys learn how good of a cook she is, they are just going to inhale everything and we will be left with nothing.” 

Maya turns on the tap as Andy protests. “She is not my best friend. She is sixteen. And we have a deal.” 

“To be best friends forever and share all of your deepest secrets with each other?” Vic laughs. 

Andy pouts at their remarks. “You can laugh all you want, but she is really mature for her age. Sometimes when I look at her, I can’t believe she was actually raised by the same man who is our captain. She is so smart, she understands this life and her father in a way I never did when I was in high school. And she says she is here because she never sees her dad back at home.” 

“Makes sense.” Maya yells over the sound of the running water and clattering dishes. “We have barely seen her father, and we have been working with him for a few weeks now. He is locked in his office, unless there is a call or he wants to inspect our uniform.” 

“I think she is just lonely.” Andy shrugs. “It is not easy, you know. Transferring to a new school, a new city, in the middle of the school year, where everyone around her all knows each other, and she is the new girl.” 

“Yeah Yeah Yeah, high school sucks, she is poor little Caidy Heron and everyone around her are mean girls.” Vic dismisses. “So are you going to ask her to cook for us or not?” 

“She doesn’t work for you, Vic. And besides, her dream is to become a firefighter, so I am mentoring her.” Andy puffs up her chest proudly, as if she is the reason Liv dreamt about becoming a firefighter in the first place.

Both Vic and Maya don't say a word, just glare at her in a way that makes her squirm. “What?” She asks. “Do I still have some sauce on my face?” She picks up a napkin and rubs her lips, trying to wipe off every last trail of the sticky substance. 

“Do you really think it is a good idea?” Maya turns the tap close and looks at her best friend pointedly.

“Well, yeah.” And why shouldn’t she? “We always talk about how training is so much harder on us women, and how we wish more women would choose this line of work. Liv wants to follow her father’s footsteps, just like I did. And if she starts training at this age, maybe she will have an advantage once her actual tests begin. I know it sounds weird, but I truly believe in her. She just needs a good role model, and if I can be that for her, then why not?” 

“That is all good and well, but did you ask Sullivan what he thinks about the idea?” Vic questions, and Andy feels like she doesn’t follow where this conversation is headed exactly. Like they are both thinking the same thing, while Andy still hasn’t quite got a grasp on what they are talking about. 

“Why do I have to care what he thinks? She came to me, said she wanted to learn from me. All I did was agree to teach her.” 

“I am just saying, you and Sullivan act like a cat chasing down a mouse pretty much since the moment he got here. Whatever you do, he is not happy about it. Whatever you and his daughter do, you should consult him, or keep it under the radar. You know, in order not to ruin things for her, or for yourself.” Maya slides back to her chair. 

They have so many things that still have to get done between one call and another. Sullivan flooded them with tasks, cleaning and counting supplies and checking equipment. Yet even as the list of endless chores is running around each of their minds, it seems like they can’t move, glued to their seats by an invisible force holding them tight, reluctant to let go. 

This makes everything so much worse when the alarm goes off, calling them to handle a fire not far away from the station.

“Come on!” Maya grants as she picks herself up from the stool, unwillingly running down the stairs. 

“Hey Maya,” Andy calls as they both enter the aid car together, slamming the door as Bishop starts the engine of the car. “Can I borrow your practice gear later? Olivia is supposed to come by tomorrow afternoon, and I want her to practice running around with everything on top of her, get a sense of the weight she would have to carry around.” 

“Yeah, fine.” Maya agrees. “Just tell you new bestie that if she ruins things that belong to me, I will make her pay for that.” 

********

“One more time.” Andy calls down the stairs in the general direction where Liv is. Andy checks her watch, counting the second for the sixteen years old, too exhausted to even run up the staircase one more time. 

A sweaty and tired Liv runs past her, reaching the small gym of the station completely out of breath, pieces of dark hair falling loose on her red face. 

“Good.” Andy calls. “You are down ten seconds from your results last week. Now give me ten push ups and twenty crunches and you are done.” 

Liv rolls her eyes, still struggling to catch her breath and lower her pulse back to a normal rhythm. “Remind me again why are we doing this?” The sixteen years old calls, and she settles herself on the floor to do exactly as she was asked. 

“We have gone through this already so many times.” 

“Yeah, I need to hear this once more, you know, as a reminder.” Liv breaths out and she lowers herself into her first push up. 

“You are doing this because you have to be at a peak level of fitness in order to have any chance to make it through the academy at all. Other than affecting your physical strength and being good over all to your body, it builds mental strength, which is very important when you are surrounded by men who seem like their entire job in life is to bring you down. The sooner you will get to the absolute best fitness level you can be at, the better.” 

Liv turns around and lies on her back, Andy applying pressure on her feet, as she starts to count down the crunches she has to perform. “I just wasn’t aware that becoming a firefighter will include doing so many workouts.” 

“Give me five more.” Andy pushes Liv to her limit. The girl can barely get them done, every fiber of a muscle in her body aching and burning. As she is finally done, she exhales loudly and lies on her back, sprawling her limbs everywhere. 

“Well, you should have asked before you got yourself into this deal.” Andy smiles, picking the weights and equipment that were used during their session off of the floor and stores them away in their right places.

“Is it too late to call it quits?” Liv asks seriously, and Andy can see she is covered in a thin layer of sweat all over her face, neck and tank top. 

“Yes it is.” Andy confirms. The last thing she wants is for this young girl to give up on herself just because she had done one too many squats. “Do you want to come and make dinner?” 

Andy’s stomach is growling, and she hopes and prays that the girl will agree, and that she will make her something that is both quick and easy. 

To her misfortune, Liv keeps lying on the floor, unable to do as much as blink. “Give me a second.” She pleads. “My dad is out anyway, he has some kind of a meeting that he couldn’t miss.” 

“I didn’t know that.” Andy trails off. “Why didn’t I know this?” 

“He said he left Gibson in charge while he is gone.” 

Of course he did. Of course he wouldn’t even bother to tell her such a thing, even as Jack and her share the exact same ranking. It makes her blood boil in her veins, and if his daughter wasn’t present, she would have let out a steam of curses in Spanish that would have made her father tell her to go wash her mouth with soap. 

The only thing she can do is swallow the feelings back where they came from. 

“Can I ask you a couple of questions, since I don’t think I will be able to drag myself up from this exact spot for the next day or so?” Liv says. 

“Sure.” The firefighter answers. 

“What was it like for you, growing up only with your father?” 

Andy thinks about it for a long while. There are many parts of her late childhood and early adolescents that are a blur, so vague she can’t recall them. “I had my mom around for the first ten years of my life. She taught me everything I know. She raised me to be who I am, alongside my father, so I can safely say that my personality was as equally affected by her as it did by him.” She takes a seat on the training bicycle, having a feeling this is going to be a long conversation. “I don’t remember much from the time right after she passed away, but I do remember being your age. And believe me when I say, I was a walking nightmare.”

“For some reason, I can’t believe it.” Liv shakes her head. “You seem so responsible, and everyone in this station obviously looks up to you. I just can’t believe you were one of those trouble making horror teens.” 

“Then you better start believing. Or you can ask my dad. He comes by often. He has a mustache and station 19 hat, you can’t miss him even if you want to, believe me. What about you?” 

“It was always just my dad and I, since I can remember myself. I guess I don’t have anything to compare it to, but I try to stay off of trouble as much as I can. I think it still pains him sometimes, you know. The memory of my mom. I try to bring it up as rarely as possible, but even so, it seems like every once in a while there is something that just reminds him of her.” 

“You know, he is very lucky to have you as his daughter.” Andy states, and she believes in it wholeheartedly. 

She is not sure if Olivia blushes or if the red on her face is still an outcome of the intense physical activity, but she calls “My turn.” nevertheless, trying to change the subject. “What did you do when you got your first period?” 

“You know, back in Montana, I did have some friends who happened to be girls, and they had moms or older sisters around to walk them through the steps. I got my period later than most girls, so it wasn’t really an issue. And besides, there is this magnificent thing called Youtube. It will teach you everything you possibly need to know about any subject in the world, and much, much more than that.” 

“Well, for me.” Andy starts, then hides her face between her hands in mortification. “I didn’t have any of that when I first got my period. The friends who were females or Youtube. The only constant people I had around me while I was growing up were Ryan and my father, who I obviously could not ask for advice in that particular area. So I went to a drugstore, picked up a box of tampons and asked the first woman I saw who worked there what I was supposed to do with them. I will let you imagine the rest.” 

Liv laughs, a big sound coming from deep inside her stomach. When her fit of giggles finally subsides and she manages to calm herself down, she says “My turn again. Are you currently seeing someone?” 

Andy hesitates, before answering slowly. “Not anymore. Why are you asking?” 

Liv sits upright and pulls her shoulders up. “No reason. So by not anymore you mean you used to date someone.” Liv's words leave her mouth as a statement more than as a question. 

In the couple of weeks Andy has known the teenage girl, she has learnt quite a lot about her. One of those things was she never gives up until she gets what she wishes for, not unlike Andy herself. 

“Jack and I used to… I don’t even know how to call it. I mean, in order to date someone you actually have to go on a date, which we never did.” 

“And you and Ryan.” Liv states again. 

“How did you know?” 

“You talk about him way more than a girl speaks of a man who is only her friend. And besides, from what I gathered from your stories, you have known each other for years on end. There is no way nothing has ever happened between the two of you.” Andy is once again at owe by how observant the sixteen years old is, at how fast she picks up on the small details. 

“Ryan and I… It is complicated.” Andy admits. Her stomach growls again, makes noises that even Liv can hear, sitting a few feet away from her. 

“How come you are always so hungry?” The teenagers ask. 

“I just use a lot of energy in my line of work. So you know, I have to get it back in somehow. Do your stretches and let’s go, before I decide to eat you for dinner.” 

Liv stays rooted in her place, and it seems like she is thinking about something, ignoring completely the last part of Andy’s sentence. “Did you hear what I have said, anything at all?” 

“You know, my dad and I have a taco Tuesday dinner every time he is off from work that particular day of the week. You should join us. I even make the taco shells from scratch.” 

Of course she does. Andy hesitates, tries to figure out the best way to turn the girl down without hurting her. “I don’t know. Last time we ate dinner together, it almost ended in a disaster.” 

“Come on, Andy.” Liv is relentless. “Just give him a chance. I swear, outside of work, he is not half as bad as you and your friends like to believe.” 

And somehow, Andy can believe it. He raised a girl to become this amazing young woman, and he did it all on his own. It must count for something.

“Fine.” Andy gives in. “But only if you make that ramen for dinner, and you do it right now. And you do the stretch routine I have taught you. They are important!” 

Liv gives her a big, self satisfied smile, and Andy knows she has once again fallen a victim to the charms of the sixteen years old daughter.


	4. Chapter 4 - Uncle Luke

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! If you are here, then first of all, I am so sorry it took me so long to update this story, but I am back and I am doing my best with both Daughter and The One That Got Away.   
> This will be a little bit slower, because I feel as if Olivia's character needs some building. I didn't forget about your request for the boys to appear on this story again, and they will be on the next chapter. I am sure that by the title you could understand who this chapter is going to be about.   
> Thank you so much for reading and supporting this story, I hope you enjoy this one and leave me your thoughts!

14 years ago 

There is someone knocking on the front door to the Sullivan house. 

Robert furrows his brow in confusion, not really used to having any guests dropping by unannounced, and he can’t remember inviting anyone over that evening. 

He twists the key in it’s hole and opens the door only a third of the way, so he can get a peak at whoever it is who decided to invite themselves to his home. 

It is raining heavily outside, like it does more often than not in the city of Seattle, and in his threshold stands the man who used to be his best friend, right before his whole world turned upside down only a year ago. “What are you doing here?” Robert asks sharply, his manners non existing in that particular moment. 

Ripley huffs, and places his hand on the door so Robert won’t be able to shut it in his face like he planned to do. “I just want to talk. We went from being practically brothers to not exchanging a single word for an entire year in a blink of an eye. I don’t want to leave things this way.” He almost begs. 

“You are the reason my daughter has to grow up without her mother.” Sullivan accuses.

That day, those awful moments when he lost the love of his life, ran through his mind more times than he could count in the past year. Haunting him during his waking moments, appearing in his nightmares. And the more he thought about it, the more he realized there was nothing anyone, Ripley or him, could do. 

There was nothing any of them could have done to save her, to bring her back to life. 

And yet, the anger he has inside him towards his best friend never subsided. He still blames him, even if only for the fact that he needs someone to have responsibility for this tragic event, other than God himself. 

Ripley knows that much. He could never understand the pain his friend is going through, not completely, but he was happy to play the role of his punching bag for the last year, if it means his friend was hurting just a little bit less. 

But it has been a year, and he had had enough of the silent treatment. “I came to talk about her.”

“Don’t you dare mentioning my daughter.” Robert hisses through gritted teeth. They are still standing at the entrance to the house. Robert is not inclined to invite the man in, and Lucas doesn’t want to push too far, past the breaking point. 

So they both stand there, looking into each other’s eyes, waiting for someone to be the first to crack. 

Robert waits for the unwanted company to leave, while Luke waits for an invitation to stay. 

As if she knew she is the topic of the very heated conversation between the two men, Olivia appears out of nowhere, makes her way on her wobbly feet. She is two years old, yet still has some of that baby fat clinging on to her body, making her look a little chubby, and oh so very sweet. 

Robert can’t help but wonder as he watches her approaching the two men, working her charm even from afar. He can’t help but wonder what will happen when the fat disappears, and she will grow into a child, then a teenager, then a young woman. 

The small girl slips through the crack in the door and stands between the two tall men, looking between her father and the man she can recognize, but doesn’t fully know who he is exactly, a look filled with confusion on her face. Then recognition hits her, and her whole face lights up as if she had just gotten a brand new toy to play with. 

“Uncle Luke!” She calls excitedly in her little voice. She reaches her hands up for him to pick her up in his arms, and he does exactly as she wishes, can’t refuse those big brown eyes looking at him. 

It has been a year since the last time she saw him, but beforehand he was quite the regular guest at their house, and apparently he made an impression on the little girl, one that she remembers fondly. “Hey, Livia! Look how big you are! I barely even recognized you!” He greets her, holding her tight into his chest. 

Something inside of Robert relaxes when he sees his little girl happy to be lifted off the ground by his former best friend. 

She is so much like her mother it pains him sometimes. She is charming, and she trusts people way more easily than he ever did. He is sure that if Claire was still here, their daughter would have resembled her in many more different ways. 

“Can I come in, so we can have a talk about it? It doesn’t seem like the topic you can discuss by the door.” Luke asks. 

Sullivan opens the door fully, lets Luke stroll in, still holding his little girl in his arms. 

Nothing has really changed in the house since the last time Ripley visited, so he finds his way into the living room and sits on the couch in no time. 

Even though some people may not call it the best method to handle grief, Robert made sure to leave almost everything the way it was that day Claire left the house, but never returned. He even left that George Micheal CD inside the reader, though he can’t bring himself to listen to it. 

He knows he probably should move, or at least sort through some of her belongings, but every time the thought appears in his mind, it feels like he betrays her memory somehow . 

Maybe a part of him, as irrational as it might be, still believes she will come home someday, apologize for the year she was absent, ready to fit back into their life. If something like this ever happens, she will sure as hell be angry with him for ruining her perfectly decorated house. 

Robert makes his way to the kitchen and grabs two cold beer bottles out of the fridge. He takes his time opening them, and looks at the interaction between his daughter and Ripley for a moment. 

Lucas was always great with children, better than Sullivan ever was, better than he thought he can ever be. He is a natural, and they love him, and it used to pinch lightly, to see how easy going he is with Olivia, because Luke never had children of his own. 

By the way his marriages tend to work out, he probably never will. 

Robert places the two bottles on the coffee table, then turns to his daughter, who still sits in Ripley’s lap. “Livia, why won’t you get one of your dolls and play for a while, OK? Daddy needs to talk about something.” The little girl nods, then hops on the floor and makes her way to fetch her favorite toy. 

Each of the men grabs one of the beer bottles, and takes a big swig of it, before Sullivan breaks the silence. “You are really good with her.” He acknowledges. 

“This is what I wanted to talk about, actually. I know that you two don’t have anyone else in your life but each other. I can’t force you on keeping me in your life, but please, I am her godfather, let me be part of hers.” 

“I don’t know.” Robert hesitates. He looks down to the bottle, and moves his fingers across the rim of the neck.

The little girl makes her way back to the living room, and Robert knows that she is oh so curious about the conversation between the two adults, even if she can’t quite grasp what is going on yet. Another trait she definitely inherited from her mother. 

“Please.” Lucas tries again. “I don’t want anything more than you are willing to give. Maybe a few occasional visits, and Christmas and birthday presents? How does this sound to you?” 

Deep down, Robert knows that this is what Claire would have wanted. She liked Luke, he is sure of that. She thought he was a good man and a good friend to Robert. And he can almost hear her saying to him to put his trust again in this man. To let him back into his and Livia’s life. 

“Fine.” Robert huffs. “I agree to these terms, even though you have to know, for a two year old, this girl is very picky with her presents, and for some reason she never wishes for the cheapest item in the store.” 

“No shit.” Lucas murmurs, before Robert has an opportunity to stop him. 

Robert sighs, knowing fully well what is about to happen. 

Livia lifts her little face up from her toy, looking deep into Ripley’s blue eyes and repeats “No shit”, even though she has no idea what that particular word means. 

Both of the men look at the little girl, and burst out laughing. 

*************  
Present Day 

“Hey dad, dinner is ready!” Liv shouts in the general direction of the living room, where she knows her father lies sprawled on the couch, watching one of those mediocre crime shows on Netflix he absolutely loves, but will never admit so. They are sharing one of those rare Sundays, when he doesn’t have to work and she doesn’t have to study for any upcoming tests (or so she tells herself, anyway), and they can just spend their time in the house blissfully doing nothing at all. 

He seems to ignore her, completely invested in whatever it is that he is bingeing, but as Liv makes her way to scold him that their dinner is getting cold, trying to figure out when did they switch roles, and she became the parent, she hears a knock on the door. 

“Do you expect someone?” She asks her father, as she runs the details of her last conversation with Andy in her head. She told her Tuesday, so it can’t possibly be her. 

“No.” Her father yells, and as Olivia notices he doesn’t move an inch towards the door, she sighs and makes her way to find out who their uninvited company might actually be. She opens the door to a crack, and smiles as she sees the man standing in the entrance. 

“Hey, Luke.” She greets.

“Hey, Luke? “ He repeats her words. “What happened to you yelling ‘Uncle Luke’ and coming to hug me?” The chief asks, a look of actual disappointment on his face. 

“Well, I am sixteen now, not six.” The girl answers, as if he is supposed to know that she is not going to practice childish behavior like that anymore. 

Ripley nods his head, refuses to believe that the little girl who used to try and clip colorful hair pins to his hair is a young woman already. “I don’t know how you are sixteen years old already. That makes me… Just old.” He smiles at her direction. 

“You are old, Luke.” Sullivan calls loudly their way, still sitting on the couch. 

“Well, I guess that this saves me the question whether your father is at home. I just came by to see how you two re-acclimate to the city of Seattle. I didn’t mean to stay long.” 

Olivia sees the unexpected visit as an opportunity to get her dad used to having company over dinner, so he might get a little less mad when she finally tells him their plans for Tuesday evening. “You should stay.” The teenager decides. “I just made dinner, and I prepared a lot more than what the two of us are capable of eating.” 

“I don’t know.” He hesitates. 

“Stay.” The girl insists, and she gives him the same stubborn look she sent Andy’s way a few days ago in the gym, and it works like magic, as always. 

“I mean, if your dad doesn’t mind…” Luke trails off. 

“He doesn’t.” Liv decides without even asking her father. 

“So how have you been, Livia?” Lucas asks, trying to avoid an uncomfortable silence. “Last time I saw you, you were a lot shorter than you are today.” 

Olivia pulls another set of plate and silverware from the cabinets quickly, and sets the table to accommodate three people instead of just two. “Well, last time you saw me was years ago, and since then no one calls me Livia anymore. Liv is fine.” 

“I call you Livia.” Robert joins in on the conversation, as he makes his way toward the kitchen. He opens the fridge and pulls out two beer bottles, opens them up and hands one of them to his best friend, who already found a seat by the dinner table. 

“That is because you refuse to listen to me.” She glares at her father, as they both find their places by the table. They all load their plates with food, and take the first few bites in silence. It isn’t awkward as Ripley dreaded it to be, but rather pleasant, even if he hasn’t seen the two of them in quite a long time. 

“The food is excellent, Liv.” Ripley compliments, emphasizing the way he says her name, exactly as she wanted it to be said. Since he can remember her, she always had her way of getting things exactly the way she wanted them to be, and though the year passed, this particular attribute never changed. 

“Where did you learn to cook like that?” Ripley inquires as he takes another bite.

“The internet.” She sits up a little higher in her chair. “Because if it was up to him,” She points at her father. “I would have starved to death years ago, and frankly, so would my dad.”

“What do you mean by that?” Lucas asks, his gaze moving between the father and the daughter. 

“Do you want to tell him, or should I?” Olivia asks her father. They both have a feeling that as chief, Ripely won’t approve of what he is about to hear. 

“She means that I made it a habit to not eat with the other members of the crew.” Luke gives him a stern look, which makes Sullivan feel like he needs to reason his action. “Meal times are when they get to have their space. The last thing they need or want at that time is that the new captain, who they don’t really know or like, will be all up in their personal business.” 

“So I have been coming to the station, doing my homework, and I use this as an opportunity to see my dad, and to make sure he eats something more than a granola bar. I rather do that than hang out at home all alone when he is working.” Olivia makes a well planned pause, and then adds as if she has forgotten. “Oh, and Andy. I keep her from starving too.” 

Olivia makes an act of facing down to her plate, as she slightly shifts her gaze to see how the name being said casually affects her father. He will never admit it, but his whole body tenses up when he hears her name. She can’t quite understand what is actually going on between the two, if it is pure hatred or if it can be something more, but she is sure as hell determined to find out. 

“Herrera, what does she have to do with anything?”

“She helps me cook.” Olivia thinks about that statement for a minute, then corrects. “No, she actually makes more harm than she helps, but I am confident she will get there one day.” 

“Yeah, about that.” Sullivan interrupts them. He chews the food in his mouth, keeping everyone on edge before he speaks. “Why don’t you find a friend your age, instead of Herrera?” 

“Because, everyone in my school already knows each other. No one wants to be friends with the new girl who transferred in the middle of the year.” The words pinch her heart as she says them, because she knows the truth they hold in them. She takes a deep breath, and decides to keep those thoughts stored and locked for now. She won’t let them throw her off her mission. “Talking about her, I invited her over to join us for taco night this Tuesday, so she will be eating with us.” The girl says nonchalantly, and she almost chuckles when she sees her dad choking on the piece of chicken he just had. 

“No she won’t.” Robert tries to protest, even though knowing his daughter, he is fighting a battle doomed to failure. 

“Yes, she will.” Olivia insists, yet keeps her face completely calm, letting her father know this has been settled already . 

“Then, uninvite her.” He tries. 

“Can’t do that.” 

“So I will leave the house for the night, and let you two have as many tacos as you want.” 

Olivia sighs and places her fork down. “Dad, I spent enough time trying to convince Andy that you are not as terrible as you seem, and believe me, it was a harder task than you might think it was. If she opens up to you, everyone else in her team will follow.” 

She leaves out her ulterior motive she has for inviting said fire fighter over for dinner. Ever since she can remember, her father never introduced her to another woman. As she grew older she understood that there were some women over the years, but nothing became a serious relationship. If you ask Robert Sullivan, he will tell you that the last thing he needs in his life is a relationship. That he had his one, great love story with Claire, and that it is everything he needed. 

But Olivia knows her father better, and she just wants him to be happy, and when she met Andy for the first time, things have clicked in all the right places in her mind, even though Andy is clearly younger than her father. Neither of them knows it, but they might be just what the other one needs, and Olivia is sure they will get there, with some help on her side of course. 

“Oh, good luck with that, Sully.” Ripley says as the both men understand Sullivan has no way out of it. 

“Personally, I think Andy is great.” Olivia tries to advocate for the firefighter, who isn’t present at the moment. 

“She is… Many things. I think I would go with challenging, if you ask me.” 

“Oh, you have no idea how challenging she really is, Luke.” Sullivan agrees. 

“Well, I would go with smart, or kind. I bet she has a boyfriend.” She sneaks her glance in the direction of her father, to see if that idea has any effect on him. 

He stays still, and only remarks.“Something that you are not allowed to have until you are 30, young lady.” 

Liv ignores whatever her father had to say and continues, trying further to see if the notion that Andy is dating someone is bothering him. “It might be Jack.” 

“I mean, if Gibson and her are dating, this isn’t supposed to be a problem. They are both in the same rank.” Luke interferes. 

“Or maybe it is Ryan. She talks about him a lot, but I never got around to seeing him. Did you meet him, dad?” 

“Yeah, I have. He is a cop, a pretty decent guy.” Her father shrugs his shoulders. 

Liv sighs and tries again. “She is really, really pretty, too.” 

Ripley and Sullivan exchange knowing looks, before her father scolds. “Eat your veggies, girl.”

Olivia picks up a piece of broccoli and shoves it on her mouth, making exaggerated chewing noises as she bites into it. 

The three around the table look at each other for a moment, then burst out laughing.


	5. Chapter 5 - You Can't Rush The Rita

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone!  
> Thank you for coming back! I know how long this has been waited for, so I won't say anything other than I hope you enjoy, and that you leave me your thoughts if you want to!

It is Monday morning, and Andy finds her captain is in her spot again. The place where she goes when she likes to be alone, when she wants to take a moment to breath and clear her thoughts. 

She had told him that she uses this exact place to think, to clear her mind, and she expected him to never show up again, considering the fact they are trying to run into each other as little as possible. She can’t say they have been doing that with much success up until now. They are trying to avoid each other, because every time they do run into each other, every time they come face to face, one disagreement or another rises between them, and one of them can’t help but pick a fight with the other. 

“I should probably go.” Andy mutters, mostly to herself, as she sees him leaning against the rail. He seems like he is brooding, thinking deeply about something, and she realizes he probably didn’t notice her making her way towards him, even though her footsteps were anything but quiet. 

“You are early.” He says just as she is about to turn and leave, lower the friction between them to the bare minimum necessary between a captain and his lieutenant. 

“I am.” She confirms, and she notices he doesn’t look her in the eye, but instead stares straight forward. Maybe this is the reason he decided to spend some time here, even though he knows it is her spot. He just didn’t figure out she is going to be at the station at all. “I couldn’t really sleep, so I thought I might come here early and get some chores done, maybe start on breakfast before everyone else shows up.” Andy bites her lower lip, debating if she really wants to get into a conversation with him. She could walk away right now, but tomorrow she won’t have as many choices, so maybe she should stay, and try to feel less anxious in his presence, try to learn how to make small talk with this man who just refuses to open up, for his daughter's sake. “You are early, too.” 

“I usually come in early, now that Livia is old enough to make her way to school by herself.” He lets her know. She never really noticed it until this moment, but thinking back at it, she can vaguely remember him watching them arriving at the station from his seat by the desk in the captain's office, on a few different occasions “I like my mornings to be productive. It gets the whole day kick started the right way.” It sounds like a slogan he read over and over again in some kind of a self help book, and the image in her mind of him reading one of those books which is supposed to lead you to a better self is unavoidable. Thinking about it, there is no way his man reads a trashy mystery novel or binge watches something on Netflix on his off time. 

Yes, Andy decides. He most definitely reads self help books when he doesn’t have to be in the station. 

“You know, she hates when you call her that way.” Andy recalls the way the sixteen year old kept rolling her eyes again and again whenever her father decides to use that specific nickname. 

“Oh, believe me, I know. She made a very big deal reminding me just how much she dislikes it yesterday over dinner. But I just can’t help it. When she was just a toddler, she couldn’t really grasp the concept of a mirror. She used to run to every single reflecting surface that she could see herself in on those little, chubby legs, and she used to call ‘Livia’ over and over again, touching the mirror every single time, leaving sticky finger marks.” Andy looks at him, and even though he still hasn’t made eye contact for the entire time she was standing by his side, she can see his smiles as he reminisces. It is the first time she has seen him smile ever since he was introduced as the new captain of her station.

Andy knew he really loves his daughter, but she didn’t realize this cold and harsh man was capable of loving someone, anyone, as much as she can tell he loves Olivia. Maybe he is not as distant and stern as he makes others perceive him to be. Maybe underneath all these layers, deep down, there is another man, waiting for them to notice him. 

“She couldn’t pronounce the O in her name, and Claire just found it hilarious.” Sullivan continues. “So that is how the nickname was born, and by the time she started to protest it, asking people to call her ‘Liv’, it was too late.” He shrugs, and Andy notices that as he mentions his late wife, Liv’s mother, the smile wipes off of his face completely. 

“You raised a great young woman.” Andy compliments, even though she doesn’t know how much weight her thoughts have on him.

“Thank you, Herrera. I appreciate it, more than you know.” He nods at her in acknowledgment. “When my wife died, I had to be her everything. I was the only family she had, and I was so afraid to mess everything up in so many steps along the way. I guess it is nice to hear from someone else that I did a good job, after all.” 

He is finally, finally letting her in, sharing something personal about his life. All she had to do is talk about his daughter, apparently. 

“Speaking of her.” He shifts his body, so now he is facing her. “I heard she invited you over for dinner tomorrow evening.” 

“She did.” Andy nods. “The word invited doesn’t really fit, though, for how that particular conversation went down. Persuaded, commended, forced. Those are all words that I find describe it better.” Andy smiles, recalling the girl trying to convince her again and again, relentless, reluctant to take no for an answer. 

“Oh yeah, she can be like that sometimes. More often that not, actually. You said that I did a good job raising her, but sometimes I believe I have done the job too well, raising her to stand up for herself and never give up until she gets whatever it is she wants. And unfortunately, it came back to bite me in the ass so many times in the past sixteen years.” They both chuckle at that, and the air between them is lighter than usual. She makes a mental note to keep their conversation, other than the professional one it is necessary for them to have, around his daughter, a topic that seems safe enough. 

Sullivan places a finger on his lips, and he seems as if he is debating the next thing that he is going to slip out of his mouth. “I actually came here, and I hoped you would show up. I just wanted to let you know that you are not under any obligation to have dinner with us tomorrow night, and you can cancel at any time during the shift. I know my daughter, and I am sure she gave you her phone number by now.” 

Andy nods, because yes, she did, just after they settled on Andy teaching Liv how to become a firefighter. Liv has been texting her every day, letting her know whether she is planning to drop by the station or not, so Andy can be prepared for their so-called lessons. “Why? Do you prefer I won’t be there? Cause if it doesn’t work out for you, we can definitely schedule for another day, later.” She mumbles, trying to figure out if he is showing her a way out, and debating if she should take the offering. 

“I am just saying, you probably have something better to do than to spend your free time after a long shift with your captain and his daughter.” 

She thinks about it for a long moment. She has readied herself for a long night of uncomfortable silences and awkward moments, so she came up with an idea that will keep all of them entertained and occupied, so they will be able to avoid any tension that might build up between the two of them. But thinking about it, thinking about the way he acted during this conversation, it might not be as awful as she dreaded it to be. 

And frankly, the sixteen year old intimidates her more than she would like to admit. 

“Look, I know for a fact that the both of us would much rather do something else tomorrow night other than sharing a dinner with each other, especially considering how the last   
meal we shared went down. But your daughter insists on it for a reason that I cannot understand, so I think it will be best if the both of us will just swallow the pill and do as she bids.” 

Sullivan smiles at her, and mumbles. “Oh, you have no idea, Herrera.” 

Then she hears a loud noise of chatter and laughter coming from the entrance, and she can see Vic, Jack and Warren all make their way through the barn and to the locker room to change. 

Andy knows the moment is over when she brings her attention back to him. His shoulders slump, his body tenses up, and the traces of the rare smile that showed on his face are now completely undetectable. 

“I should probably start on breakfast.” Andy excuses herself. He dismisses her with nothing more than a nod, and she turns around and makes her way to the beanery. 

He watches her until she is completely out of his eyesight, and he can’t help but think that his daughter might have something in her words after all. 

Andy Herrera is indeed very, very pretty. 

**********

To Andy’s misfortune, there are no significant calls during the entire shift. 

Maya and Jack are on aid car, and they are the only ones getting a call from time to time, but they return to the station quickly, reporting of nothing but a drunk who broke his nose in a bar fight and a diabetic kid whose insulin pump didn’t work, but didn’t notice until he started to feel sick and lightheaded. 

Liv let her know earlier that she won’t be arriving at the station that day, and overall it seems like the most boring shift they had had in a very, very long while. Most of the time she would appreciate the rare peace and quiet, the opportunity to spend some time with her friends as they clean the station and go over the usual chore list, or even just the chance to have some alone time to sort through her thoughts.

Yet today, she could have really used a blissful distraction from her own mind, one a big fire or two could have easily provided. Because as she counts supplies and rolls hoses, she can’t help but let her thoughts drift to the dinner she is supposed to share at the end of the shift, and from there the thought about the extent of that potential disaster are almost unavoidable. 

She should have really taken the get out card he seemed so eager to hand her over while she had the chance, but she knows that Liv will not be satisfied with her making such a decision, and she can’t risk rubbing the girl who keeps her fed and happy the wrong way. 

With no calls, it seems like the clock refuses to move, every minute stretches out and feels like an hour, every hour stretches out and feels like a day. Yet somehow time still passes, even though in a long, draining way that keeps Andy’s thoughts spiraling . She calls it an early night, yet sleep doesn’t come easy for her. She twists and turns in her little bunk, trying to clear her thoughts unsuccessfully, until her mind succumbs to the exhaustion of her body and she finally, finally drifts to a blissful sleep. 

Tuesday morning comes with no special events, and as the end of the shift rolls by, Andy catches a glimpse of Dean making his way to the gym. She thinks back for a moment, and understands that even though the conversation they had yesterday was not at all awful, Miller is the one who will have exactly the thing that will help calm down her nerves, and avoid any uncomfortable silences and awkward moments that might appear. She decides to follow the idea she had, just in case. 

She better be safe than sorry, and until now, she wasn’t able to catch Dean alone for the length of the entire shift, weirdly enough. 

She is climbing her way up to the gym, and leans against the door frame before she says his name. “Miller.” 

“Herrera?” He questions. He lifts another weight off the ground, and releases the air in his lungs when he lowers the object. 

“Montgomery.” She hears Travis say his own name, waiting for someone to acknowledge his presence in the small room, as he cycles away, moving nowhere. 

She didn’t plan on having the extra company. It is going to be hard enough on its own, and she would like to keep her evening plans a secret, as much as possible. She loves Travis, but she knows that if he is going to hear what she is about to say, well, then she can count on everyone else asking her how dinner went, including firefighters who are not even on the same shift as they are. 

“Travis.” Andy tries to come up with the sweetest voice she can master. “I need something from Dean, so can you just give us the room for a moment?” She begs. “I am sure it won’t take long.” 

“Oh no, no way.” Travis refuses. “If you want me out, it means you are hiding something, and I would really like to know what it is. So either you spill it right here, Herrera, or you walk away, without whatever it is that you want so badly.”

“I hate you, Montgomery.” Andy huffs in annoyance. 

“No you don’t.” Travis argues. “You love me. Everyone loves me.” 

Travis is not a proud man, but he is right, and both him and Andy know that much. He is friendly and very sweet, and one can try all their might, but there is no way a person doesn’t like Travis Montgomery. 

“We like you fine, Travis, as long as you don’t try to make us eat that veggie meatloaf of yours ever again.” Dean comments, and Andy can’t help but laugh at that. “How can I help you, Herrera, and for how many weeks are you willing to do my laundry in return?” He asks. 

Andy looks down at the floor, trying to find the right words to say, words that will be specific enough, but won’t leave any room for questions. “You always say that your margarita making stand keeps you out of sight and out of mind in events that might get a little bit uncomfortable, like family dinners, right?” 

“Yes?” Dean’s answer comes out as a question of his own.

“Then I need the recipe.” Andy blurts, as if Dean was supposed to read her mind and understand her meaning on his own by now. 

“Why? Do you have some kind of a family dinner you wish you could avoid, but can’t?” Travis asks, and why did he refuse to leave when she asked him to?

“None of your business.” Andy spits, praying and hoping he would let the whole thing go, knowing that if he won’t lay the subject off, she will be the talk of the station come next shift. She takes a deep breath, then adds the other of the questions she wanted to ask, but didn’t have the chance yet. “Can you make your famous margaritas virgin? You know, I bet you have some underaged relatives in your family.” 

“No, I actually don’t.” Dean answers, as he lifts the weight again. 

“Why can’t you just use tequila like normal people do? Unless…” Travis trails off, and Andy can almost see the imaginary wheels in his brain spinning just as fast as he moves the real ones. “It has something to do with Sullivan’s kid you always hang out with, doesn’t it?” There is a smug smile on his face, and this is the exact moment she knows neither of these two men will drop the subject and let her off the hook.

She just wanted the recipe for Dean’s cocktails. 

“Andy, it is a very delicate and precise process. You can’t rush the rita. And there is no chance in hell I am going to let you treat it like a kool-aid.” Dean shakes his head and goes back to his workout routine. 

“Wait, does that mean you are going to eat dinner with Sullivan? Outside of work? In his house? The same Sullivan who won’t eat dinner with us when we are at the station? I don’t know if you have done something good or something completely bad, I don’t know if it is an honor or if I should feel sorry for you.” Travis laughs. 

“Montgomery, enough with the questions.” Andy hisses. 

“Miller won’t share his recipe with you until you spill the details.” Travis decides. 

“Miller has a mouth of his own. He can decide if he wants to give it to me or not.” Andy glares pointedly at Dean, waiting for his response. 

But her hopes that he would let her off the hook easily turn out in vain. “No, I am with Travis on this one. We will get the details, and then I will consider letting you completely ruin my perfect recipe by taking the best part, which is the alcohol, of course, out of it.” 

“Fine.” Andy sighs, finally giving in under the pressure. Sometimes she hates everyone’s tendency in this station to gossip in every given opportunity they have. “Liv invited me over to dinner tonight, and I really need to have something to keep me occupied, otherwise we will probably start fighting in front of his daughter, which will end up badly for all individuals involved. Now, can I please get the instructions?” 

“Why can’t you just not show up?” Travis asks, and Andy is surprised by how naive he is.

“Have either of you had a real conversation with that girl?” Andy inquires, and when the both of them shake their heads to say that no, they haven’t exchanged too many words with the sixteen years old, Andy continues. “I swear, this girl has a way of convincing people of doing things exactly her way, even if it is the last thing on earth you would like to do.” 

“Sounds just as scary as her father.” Dean notes. 

“She is actually very different.” Andy feels like she has to speak good of the young woman who is not present in the room. “She is very warm, and funny, and open minded. I really like her. Now pay up.” She reaches out a hand to Dean, as if he is actually going to pass her some bills. 

Andy fishes her phone out of her pocket and opens a new, clean note, ready to listen carefully to each and every word Dean says. 

“I really don’t want to give it away.” Dean mumbles. 

“Miller.” Andy hisses his name and gives him a harsh look, one of her glances a person can feel deep inside their souls. 

“I give up.” He places the equipment on the floor and raises his hands in the air, a sign of his surrender. “My version of margaritas are the frozen kind. I just find it makes all the tastes stronger, and you are able to detect the flavors easily.” 

“Miller, I didn’t ask for a bartending class, I just need the recipe.” Andy bites, and she is thumping her foot down on the floor nervously by now. 

“Fine. I usually use one two shots of tequila and one shot of an orange liqueur for each glass I make, but you have to use a really good quality orange liquor, otherwise it won’t be as good .” Andy gives him a look, and he stares at her back, trying to tell her to be patient. “Now, you want your cocktails to be virgin and boring, so I would just use one cup of orange juice, third of a cup of lime juice, and some agave syrup for sweetness, depending on how sweet you would like it. If you don’t have it, a normal simple syrup will work, too. Just add those to a blender with some ice, and blend until you get a slushy texture to your drink. It is supposed to make around three servings I think.” Andy nods and types down his instructions quickly, word by word, making sure she doesn’t miss anything. “I serve mine in margarita glasses, and I top the rim with some more lime juice, salt and a piece of lime.” 

“You remembered all that by heart?” Travis asks. He might have looked surprised, but he is red in the face and covered with a layer of sweat, so Andy can’t really tell.

“You have no idea how many times I used that recipe to get me out of awkward silences and uncomfortable questions. So, so many times, more than I can count.” 

“Thank you Miller.” Andy says, and shoves her phone back into her pocket. “And let’s just agree that this never happened, and I never told you what my dinner plans are, OK?” 

“No way.” The two say unanimously. 

Andy huffs in annoyance before she mumbles, “I guess it means I need to go grocery shopping for agave syrup and limes.” then leaves the two firefighters to wonder why she couldn’t just search for a margarita recipe online.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The margarita recipe is completely made up. Don't try it at home!


	6. Chapter 6 - Taco Tuesday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! Thank you for the love and support of this story. Today is Tuesday, for Taco Tuesday! I hope you enjoy this one, and leave me your thoughts!

Andy arrives at the address Olivia texted her five minutes before the designated time. She drops the heavy grocery shopping bags, filled with every single item Dean put on her list, on the floor by the glass door, and takes a deep breath, trying to calm her loose nerves. 

At least she got a good amount of sleep the previous night, she tries to comfort herself, not knowing how things could have gone down if she was also exhausted, on top of everything else. 

She takes a deep breath, straightening the invisible lines in her shirt, as she presses the bell, hearing it chime on the other side of the door, letting the father and the daughter know of her arrival. 

He looks different when he opens the door. 

She never saw him wearing anything but his uniform or his turnout gear, as he is the one to be the first to arrive every morning, and the last to leave the following day, and it feels a little bit awkward, seeing him casually dressed in an environment that is so different from the station. He wears a pair of loose fitted light wash jeans, a casual blue button up shirt, and he seems nothing like the stern and serious captain she met in her place of work just earlier today. 

He looks like a guy she would have probably gone on a date with, maybe to a lunch or even just over coffee, she thinks to herself, but then she shakes that thought away as fast as it appeared. 

“Hey.” Andy greets quietly, unsure what else she could have said. It isn’t like she shows up at his front step every Friday to watch the football game and drink some beer. 

“You came.” He gives her a once over, sounding a little bit surprised. 

“Well, of course I came. I will never say no to a meal your daughter cooks.” She jokes, and she can see his eyes glistening with pride of his child. 

“She is quite the chef, isn’t she?” He smiles again, one of those rare smiles Andy can see on his face only when the conversation regards his daughter. “God knows where she got it from. Definitely not from me.” He looks down at the floor, avoiding eye contact, and Andy thinks he is as embarrassed as she is by the situation neither of them wanted to be in, but they found themselves in the middle of, regardless of their reluctance.

“Come in.” He invites, finally coming to the understanding that they are having a conversation outside of the house. Andy lowers herself to pick up the branded bags she left on the ground and carry them inside with her. “Let me help you with that.” Sullivan coaxes, taking the bags out of her grasp. 

When his fingers brush the soft skin at the back of her hand, she feels a little electric current in the point where they touch.  
“Captain, with all do respect, I carry hoses and equipment half my own weight when we are at work. I think I can manage a few bags.” She tries to convince him, but he would hear none of it. 

“But we are not at work right now, are we?” He asks as he makes his way into the kitchen, dropping the heavy bags on the counter. “My house, my rules, Herrera. And my rules say that guests don’t carry heavy items from place to place.” 

Andy enters the house and closes the door behind her with a soft knock. She takes a good look around the living room area, trying to absorb in as much details as she possibly can. Trying to get a sense of what kind of family they form, other than the tough father and the quick witted teenager reputation they have earned themselves around the station. 

Trying to get a sense of who he is. Trying to figure out if the harsh and uncompromising captain is all that there is to him, or if by digging a little bit under the surface, she might find another person hiding, waiting for someone to notice. 

The house is decorated to a minimalistic perfection, and it is hard for Andy to fathom a sixteen years old living in a house like this. To be honest, she is having trouble believing anyone lives in a house like this, tidy and neat to a fault, everything looks exactly in the right place. 

She thinks that maybe it is that way because they knew they are going to have company over for dinner, maybe this house is more alive in their day to day routine, with items thrown around and little notes decorating the fridge. 

She has a hard time believing so, though. 

The only decoration in the living room are photos, many of them, as if this house also functions as a memorial site. 

Andy guesses that it does. On some level, anyway. 

There is a beautiful woman looking at her from the photos that has an older look to them, some already turning yellow around the edges. She can’t be older than Andy is right now, and it takes her no time at all to realize she is no other than Claire herself, either from the way she holds her captain tightly in almost every one of those pictures, or from the way Liv is a spitting image of this woman, she isn’t sure. 

There is one in particular that catches Andy’s eyes. Claire is wearing a long, white wedding gown, and her captain is wearing a black, formal three piece suit. They look into each other’s eyes instead of straight into the camera, and they seem so in love it twists something inside of Andy’s guts. 

The pictures change as Andy’s gaze moves down the little family’s memory lane. The photos look newer, shinier, the quality better. They are always pictures of Olivia, in different ages, wearing different clothes and different hairstyles, and Andy can’t help but laugh at some of them, the ones in which she seems a total mess, even though there is nothing funny about a daughter not having her mother around to guide her through little, mundane things in life, like the fact that you can’t wear a floral shirt and a striped bottoms together, or how to do your hair. 

She learnt it in her own flesh. 

Sullivan is rarely photographed in the later pictures, maybe because he was the man behind the camera, or maybe because he just didn’t feel like being the center of attention, Andy can’t tell. But in the rare cases his form does appear, he looks sadder, his smile doesn’t reach as wide across his face like in the picture where he holds his late wife. And in all these photos, there is an open space on one side of Olivia, a painful reminder of another parent that was supposed to be a part of all those memories, but was taken away too soon. 

“Livia, did you tell our guest to bring things over?” She can hear Sullivan asking his daughter, the sound of his voice bringing her back from her own thoughts, and she realizes that her little idea of an ice breaker might have put Liv in trouble. 

“No, she didn’t.” Andy comes to her rescue, stepping quickly into the kitchen. “It was all my idea, actually. I figured that if Liv goes through all the trouble of making the food, I can at least make the drinks. Besides, Mexican food just requires margaritas to wash it all down.” Sullivan gives her one of his intimidating looks, reminding her that his daughter is not old enough to have an alcoholic beverage yet, even if she does act like an adult more often than not. “Non alcoholic margaritas, of course.” Andy adds. 

The kitchen smells amazing, the scent of vegetables and meat filling the air, making her tummy growl in protest, letting her know she is indeed hungry. Andy reaches for the bowl of chips on the counter, dips one in the guacamole she sees right beside it and shoves it ungracefully in her mouth. 

“You are going to ruin your appetite.” Liv scolds. She can’t possibly see Andy stealing food from right beneath her, not when her entire attention is dedicated to the stove, but she can certainly hear the loud sounds of her chewing. 

When Sullivan does exactly the same as she did, stealing a chip under his daughter’s supervising eye and putting it in his mouth in one, big bite, Andy can’t help but smile at him. 

Maybe there is indeed more to him than what she can see on the surface. 

“So I have orange juice, limes, agave syrup, and Miller’s top secret recipe, for which I have to do his laundry for an entire week.” Andy can hear Liv laughing at her last comment. “All I need is some ice, salt and I hope you have a blender.” 

“Oh no.” Liv makes a comment, and when Andy looks at her she buries her head deep into the pan she fries the tortillas in, making a hard taco shell. 

“Of course I have a blender, how else am I supposed to make my smoothies?” Sullivan asks, looking dead serious. 

“Well, I didn’t know you make smoothies.” Andy pulls her shoulders. It looks like the father and the daughter are communicating in some language she can’t understand, sharing a private joke she is obviously not a part of. 

“Please don’t get him started.” Olivia breaths. 

“Well, I take my smoothies very seriously. I call it a hobby.” Robert says proudly, puffing his chest out. 

“Making smoothies is not a valid hobby.” Andy calls, feeling bold. It isn’t if he can put her on desk duty the entire length of the next shift just because of something she said when they were off duty, but he can sure as hell send one of his death glares her way, which makes Andy flinch, but she can see him smile at the same time and knows her little comment didn’t bother him that much.

Andy pushes another nacho covered in the avocado goodness into her mouth as she hears the sixteen years old vent. “His blenders are like his babies, Andy. Sometimes I think he loves them more than he loves me. He will be willing to give me away before he lets anyone else but him use his precious blenders. I don’t even get to use them.” 

Andy chokes on the food she chews as she hears Liv’s comment, trying to hold down her laughter. 

She has a feeling this night is going to be full of surprises. 

“Well, maybe, Livia, I will make an exception. Just for tonight.” 

“In that case, I propose a competition. You know, making it a little bit more interesting.” Andy suggests. 

“Why do you have to make everything a contest, Andy?” Olivia asks as she fishes the last taco shell out of the hot oil. 

“What are we competing over, Herrera?” Her captain inquires, suddenly seems intrigued by her ideas. Apparently she is not the only competitive person in the room. 

“We each make our own margaritas, and we will both have access to Dean’s recipe, of course. Liv can be the judge, and whoever makes the least tasty cocktail, will have to do Miller’s laundry for a week.” 

“Nice try, Herrera.” He refuses, shaking his head. She knew it was a longshot, but she had to try nonetheless. 

“Fine.” Andy breaths. “So what will the winner get?” 

“I have an idea.” Liv starts, walking towards the fridge and pulling out all the bowls of food she made during the afternoon. As Andy gives everything a once over, she can’t possibly understand why the girl made so much food for a meal that consists of exactly three people. “The winner will get to choose what we are going to do the next time Andy comes over.” 

The next time she comes over? When did she agree to that? 

But looking at the girl, who pushes her elbow into her fathers rib, trying to convince him to agree to her terms, and watching her captain holding the spot, pretending to be in pain, she have a warm feeling in her chest, saying that she will probably find herself on their doorstep once again sooner rather than later. 

And as she watches them, watches their banter and their inside jokes, Andy can see herself falling easily into it, too, being a friend of the both of them, and not only of the daughter. 

“Agreed.” Andy calls, as Sullivan nods in her direction, giving his approval to the condition. 

“So let's go, and may the best bartender win.” Liv gives them the signal to start making the drinks, narrating the situation as if she was some kind of a TV show host. 

“That kid of yours.” Andy whispers to Sullivan as he brings out the blenders, one to each, places them on the kitchen aisle and plugs them in. 

“I know.” He nods at her direction, as she spreads out the ingredients in front of them and opens the very detailed instruction Miller gave her earlier that day on her phone, placing it on a spot the both of them can see easily. 

Andy places the both of her hands on the cool surface, watching Liv going through the kitchen like a storm, setting the table and getting the last items warm and ready. “Wait, we forgot the most important ingredients.” He calls, placing a soft hand on her shoulder, an act of kindness he puts no importance too, but makes Andy shiver. 

“I am pretty sure we have everything.” Andy scans with her eyes through everything spread in front of her. Orange juice, limes, agave syrup, ice trays, salt and glasses. She can see him going through the top shelf in a cabinet, one she would have to stand on a stool to reach, but he doesn’t even have to make an effort to get to. 

When he comes back, his eyes sparkle, and he has a mischievous smirk on his face, like a kid getting caught doing something he knows he shouldn’t, yet still has no regrets. He places the bottles of tequila and triple sec on the floor, away from his daughter’s eye. 

“I thought we said we are going to make them virgin.” Andy looks down at the bottles of liquor between his feet.

“Well, Livia’s one will be virgin. We, on the other hand, are adults.” He whispers. 

“How is this going to work?” Andy asks, still having a hard time understanding his plan fully. 

“Well, you are going to make the virgin version, and mine will be the alcoholic one, and we will just give her two glasses from the same drink to judge.” He pulls his shoulders. 

“What kind of competition will that be?” 

“The kind where we get to enjoy some twenty one and over beverages.” Sullivan looks deep into her eyes, and she feels that electric current in the back of her neck again. “Come on, Herrera. I know you, I know you enjoy breaking the rules from time to time.” He coaxes. 

“Fine.” The lieutenant breaths out. 

“What are the two of you whispering about over there, and why don’t I hear the sound of the blender going? Dinner will be ready in five minutes, and I know none of you wants to eat cold food.” The girl yells. 

“Nothing.” The both of them say back in unison. They can’t see it, not when her back is facing them as she sets the table, but there is a big smile on Olivia’s face. 

They both get to the job of making their drinks, following Dean’s orders obediently. When Sullivan is completely sure his daughter isn’t watching, totally engaged is some other matter, he pours the liquors straight into his blender, not measuring them or giving it a second thought. 

“This is way too much!” Andy tries to protest, but he just chuckles at her concerns. 

It takes them a few more minutes until their drinks are ready and they sit next to the table. 

“The food looks amazing.” Andy compliments. 

“Thank you.” The daughter sits up in her chair a little higher. “The drinks look very good, too. Now for the judgment.” 

Olivia makes a complete show out of the little competition they made up not too long ago, smelling the drinks and taking a few sips from each glass, as if she is some kind of wine expert of sorts. Her exaggerated facial expression makes Andy laugh so hard her tummy hurts. 

If this kid didn’t dream about becoming a firefighter, she could have had a bright future as an actress. 

“Come on, Livia, make a decision already, you are not a judge in Master Chef yet.” Her father rushes her. “You have two hungry adults in here, and you don’t want to see what happens when they become hangry.” 

“He is right.” Andy agrees, just before her stomach starts to make noises once again, an act of support to what she just stated. 

“Ok, Andy, heard the message loud and clear.” Livia looks down, as if she is talking to Andy's stomach, and it makes the three of them roll in laughter again. 

It feels comfortable, and easy, and Andy didn’t even have to drink from the margarita with the extra kick to have a warm sensation spread in her body.

“This one.” Olivia points down to one of the glasses. 

“Well, this is Andy’s. So I guess she is the winner.” Sullivan barges in before she has a chance to say anything. They share a knowing look, and she can’t help but think that as far as someone who claims to be competitive goes, he was very willing to let her have this win. 

They load their plates, and as she is about to take the first sip from her drink, he looks her deep in the eye and says “Cheers.” 

“Cheers.” She answers, and clicks their glasses together. 

***********

“I am full.” Andy calls as she shoves the last bite of her overstuffed taco into her mouth, leaning back into her seat. 

She is also tipsy, but she won’t say it in front of Olivia. 

The margaritas Sullivan made were strong, as one could have expected them to be, but when he suggested refilling her empty glass, she didn’t object to the idea. 

Another drink later, counting up to a total of three, she is not drunk, doesn’t think so, anyway, but she is definitely lightheaded, and she smiles way more often than she does on a normal day. 

“Thank you, Livia.” He says, and places a kiss on his daughter’s cheek, which makes his daughter move away from him in disgust. 

“Ew dad!” Liv calls, making a sour face, which leads to Andy giggling again. “How old do you think I am, six?” 

Robert shrugs, and Andy guesses she is not the only one who is a little bit tipsy at the moment. Olivia gets up from the table, now that they have all finished their meal and feel more than sated. She starts to clear the dishes out of the table and pile them up next to the sink, but her father rises from his chair quickly, and grabs her by the wrist. 

“What do you think you are doing?” He asks her, and there he is again, the harsh father and captain. It is like he has two different personalities, and Andy has a hard time following which one he uses when there is that much alcohol streaming through her blood. 

“Clearing the table and getting started on the dishes before we have dessert.” The daughter answers, unfazed by her father’s change of façade.

Maybe when you have been around him for as long as Olivia has, her entire life, you learn to live with both men. The uncompromising captain, and the man who tricked his daughter into thinking she drinks from two different pitchers, so they will be able to have their adult specialty beverage. 

“I had to let Herrera know of my rules, but you lived here every single day of your life. You know that whoever does the cooking, doesn’t do the dishes as well.” He scolds. “And besides, you invited company over to dinner, but you spent no time with her at all.” 

Olivia won’t let him know, but the idea behind the invitation wasn’t to let herself spend more time with Andy. They have plenty of time in the days she shows up at the station. 

Her goal was to let Andy see her father in a different light, and by the way the younger firefighter looks at him, her eyes sparkling, it is safe for her to say she accomplished the goal of her mission. 

“I think it is safe to say that none of us can eat another bite at the moment.” Her father calls, as Andy and Olivia both nod in agreement. “So let me take care of the dishes, and you two can go and do whatever it is you want to do until we all feel ready to have something sweet.” 

“I will help you with the dishes.” Andy suggests. “That is the least I can do.”

“Don’t even try.” The teenager mumbles, knowing Andy is about to engage in a fight doomed to be lost.

“You are a guest, Herrera. I don’t make a habit of letting the guests help me with the house chores.” Sullivan states, the tone he uses is final, much like the one he uses on calls when he gives her an order she is reluctant to follow. 

She doesn’t answer, just picks her plates up along with some of the empty bowls, and places them near the sink where Liv placed some of the dirty dishes earlier.

“You know, I am starting to understand why the two of you get along so well. You both can be so stubborn and headstrong sometimes, it can make a grown man go crazy.” He starts to run the water in the sink and scrub the plates Andy placed next to him, signaling to her silently that he is on board with the idea of her giving a hand, even though he is not happy about it. 

“Well, I am just going to pour myself another one of those margaritas, and I will be out of your way.” Liv lets them know, as she picks up one of the pitchers. 

“No!” The two adults shout in unison, and Liv gives them a confused look, as if the two of them have gone completely mental. 

“You just said you liked my version better.” Andy takes the pitcher that contains more tequila than everything else out of Liv’s hand and places it back on the table, grabbing the children friendly one instead. “Let me pour you some of mine.” Andy takes the empty glass out of her hand and fills it to the rim. 

Olivia sends another judging look at the direction of Andy and her father, and then disappears into the living room. Andy can hear the girl landing into the sofa, and then the very unique sounds of 'Keeping Up With The Kardashians’ coming from the television. 

“That was a close one.” Andy breathes out as she places the last batch of dirty dishes inside the sink.

“Nice save.” 

“Thank you. You wash, I dry?” She suggests a game plan.

“Sure.” He agrees. They do the dishes together quietly, and Andy is amazed by how comfortable the silence is, not awkward by any means, so neither of them feels the need to fill the void.

They find their rhythm in no time at all, but Andy can still feel the effect of the liquor on her reflexes, as he passes her one of the plates, she is not quick enough, and the glass dish slips and shatters all over the floor.

“I am so, so sorry.” Andy apologizes, bending down and tries to pick up the pieces. 

“Hey, Herrera, don’t think about it. It is just a plate, we have a surprising amount of them, considering the fact we are just two people eating meals regularly in this house.” He lowers himself down too, and then takes her palm in his, checking to see if some glass shreds made their way into her skin. “But please don’t try to pick this up with your bare hands. Let me get a broom or something.” Sullivan stands up, and Andy follows quickly, being careful not to trip over the mess of broken glass. 

“You know, maybe, if I intend to spend quite some of my free time over here, you can call me Andy.” It might be the alcohol, but she feels bold. 

She feels like she wants to open up to him. She wants him to open up to her. 

“Only if you call me Robert outside of the station, too.” 

“Okay, Robert.” She calls him by his first name, biting her lower lip. 

“Okay, Andy.” He smiles, looking deep into her eyes.


	7. Chapter 7 - Wednesday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's note: Hey everyone! Thank you for coming back, reading and commenting ! I changed the rating of this story, and starting this chapter it is going to be rated adult. With that said, most of the chapters are still going to be mostly clean, and I will mention what chapters has smut. This one is M rated.   
> I will love to hear your opinions, and I hope you enjoy!

They eat their dessert off of each other.

To be more accurate, Robert eats their dessert off of Andy, his mouth devouring every piece of her soft skin as he licks caramel sauce and hums as the sweetness hits the taste buds on his tongue. He isn't sure which one of them is sweeter, the condiment that was supposed to be used to dip their churros in, but is being repurposed to fill a completely different task at the moment, or the taste of her, lying beneath him, savoring the feel of his mouth on every part of her body.

He isn't sure how they got there, isn't sure how he found himself in his bed with this beautiful woman.

A woman who is supposed to be his subordinate. A woman who is fifteen years younger than him. A woman he used to keep at an arm's length, but now he isn't sure how he feels about her.

Well, he is sure that he wants her, if the fact that she is currently lying in her underwear in his bed is any indication. If the way that he is already hard in his pants is any sign of how desirable he finds her.

Robert lifts his head up, detaching his lips from the skin of her belly. He takes his time and looks at her, his eyes traveling her body, starting from her face and making his way down low, then lower. She wears a simple set of matching black bra and underwear, and by the way she tries to cover her body with her arms, he knows she didn't plan for dinner to end up with her lying half naked under his sheets.

Well, sex was the last way he expected his night to end in, but he can't say that it bothers him. Not in the slightest.

His head is spinning and he isn't sure if it is the outcome of the lust cursing through his veins, or the one too many spiced margarita he had during their dinner. Maybe it is an outcome of both, because as he looks at her, as he really tries to catch a glimpse of the little details, his vision becomes blurry around the edges, like he is looking at her through a camera lens he isn't able to keep focused.

Everything else in his body works just fine, and it is the most important thing, at least according to him.

"Why did you stop?" Andy asks, her voice filled with need.

"I just..." Robert starts, but he doesn't have the answer. Why did he stop, actually? "I don't usually do it." He tries to explain. She is close with his daughter, and they made actual progress between them tonight. They managed to stay away from fighting, and he saw her in a new light. He enjoyed having her around his house, enjoyed her company in his personal time, and not just at work. They were almost friendly, if he can say so himself.

She isn't as terrible as he thought her to be. Not in the slightest, and the last thing he wants is her thinking he is trying to take advantage of her.

"You don't do what?" Andy inquires, frowning. She moves uncomfortably beneath him, and he can tell she needs him to resume his previous activities, soon.

"I don't usually allow food anywhere outside the kitchen, let alone in my bed, of all places." He remarks, which makes Andy laugh.

It might be the most beautiful sound he has ever heard.

He picks up the little container that has been waiting for him by the side of his bed, and drizzles a small amount in a slow stream to the inside of her thigh this time. His mouth finds the spot, his tongue trailing up, catching the sauce, leaving a wet patch where his mouth has just been. "All clean." He calls, and she giggles again, that mesmerizing sound coming from a low point in her belly, and makes him ever harder, makes him want to take her even faster.

"Wait, I think I missed a little bit right... here." He whispers. His lips catch a certain spot on her skin, and suck on it, hard, hard enough that come morning, she will wake up with a nasty bruise just there. Not that he cares. He decides that the only man who should have access to that specific spot so high up her thigh is him, so no one else would notice it anyway.

Andy moans at the feeling of his lips on her leg. She grips the sheets between her palms, and as he lifts his head, he can see her eyes closed shut, as she tries to enjoy the different sensation he inflicts upon her body, without touching her quite there. "Andy, as much as I would like to hear every sound I can get out of you, you have to be quiet. Livia is sleeping in the room just across the hall, and the walls of this house aren't as thick as one might think them to be."

"The door is locked." Andy breaths out, still not looking at him.

Is the door locked? He can't remember doing that specific action, but he is certain one of them made sure his teenage daughter won't be able to enter his bedroom without knocking. The last thing he wants is to scar her for life.

Robert gets back to his affairs. He moves up her body a bit, tracing a trail with his tongue, starting at the hem of her bra. He licks, then breathes on it slightly, and he can see goosebumps rising on her skin, can see the way she shivers under his touch. He kisses his way down her belly, and then does the exact same thing for her on her underwear line, avoiding taking them off deliberately.

"Robert, please." Andy begs, and seeing her like that, pleading for him, he knows he won't be able to hold back for much longer. He wants to take his time with her, wants to explore, wants to learn every curve and every spot, but he guesses that if she would be up to it, they will have the time to do it later.

He kisses her softly on her lips, and then moves off of her, which makes her whimper. "Just grabbing a condom." He reassures her.

But something feels off as he rolls to the other side of the bed, trying to reach his nightstand, where he keeps a small stack of condoms ready for moments much like this one. Something feels different, not quite right.

There is an acute pain sensation at the top of his face, just above his brow, and that is how Robert finds himself sprawled on the floor, landing down from his bed with a loud noise.

His head is throbbing. And as he is trying to figure out what exactly happened, how exactly he found himself in this specific position, he realizes that his head isn't the only thing that is pulsing with pain at the moment.

Shit.

He manages to open his eyes, little by little. It takes him time to adjust to the darkness, but he is able to read the time blinking on the alarm clock standing just by his bedside. It is currently just past four in the morning, and he had a very wet and vivid dream about no other than Andy Herrera.

The door to his bedroom opens, and he quickly grabs one of the blankets from his bed, covering himself. He doesn't want to traumatize his daughter.

"Olivia, don't ever come into my bedroom in the middle of the night without knocking. You are not a child anymore." He manages to scold through gritted teeth, even though he feels two different kinds of very painful pressure in two very different spots in his body.

He never uses her full name, always calls her by that childish nickname she tells him she hates, but actually doesn't mind that bad, not when it comes from him, the most important person in her life. So in the few and far between cases he does use her given name, she knows she is in big trouble, like that time she skipped class back in Montana to go to the movie theater with some boy.

She can't possibly understand what she has done wrong at the moment, though. "I heard a loud noise coming from your room, and it woke me up. I just came to see if you are okay, dad. I am sorry I entered without knocking. It won't happen again."

"You don't have to worry about me." He reassures her.

"I know you constantly remind me who the parent is and who the child is in this relationship, but I do care about you, dad. We are all we have." For now, anyway, she thinks to herself, if her plan is going to work just as well as it seemed to be starting off last evening.

"Andy..." He whispers, and even though Liv is practically sleep walking, she cracks a small smile as she hears him blurt out the name. Funny thing, how she is the first person who comes to his mind when he is lying on the floor in the middle of the night.

"What about her?" Olivia asks. She also notices he used her first name instead of referring to her as Herrera. That is new, she thinks to herself, and tags it as another small success in her mind.

"Did she... Did she make it home?" He looks disoriented, but Olivia hesitates, not wanting to get any closer. She knows her father, and one of the many things he is good at doing, is raising back up on his feet after a fall.

"I don't know." Liv shrugs. "You guys stayed and talked on the sofa forever, and I called it a night..." She trails off. "But dad, I am sure she made it back safely. It is the middle of the night and the two of you have the day off tomorrow. I promise I will check on her in the morning, but I am sure you have nothing to worry about."

"Thank you." Her father whispers.

"Good night, dad." She says, stepping out of his bedroom.

"Good night, Livia."

"Oh, and dad" She adds just before she closes the door behind her. "Your forehead is bleeding."

Olivia leaves, closes the door with a soft knock, and Robert lets out a groan. Great, now he has two things to care of.

He picks himself off of the floor carefully. His body is sore. He landed quite badly as he rolled off the bed, but he hasn't noticed the sore back and stiff neck until now, because he was too occupied by the pain in his head and the erection he has to take care of. He gazes at the sheets, can't help the thought that she might actually be there, hiding away between the covers. He checks the bed quickly, just for the slight chance it wasn't all a dream, but the other side of the bed is cold and empty.

Robert stretches a bit, trying to ease his sore muscles. Then he walks over to the bathroom, kicking away the boxers he is wearing. He turns on the water in the shower, fidgets a bit with the tap until the temperature of the water is to his liking.

Then he leans against the cool tile wall and takes himself in the hand. He is already completely hard and pretty worked up by the dream he had.

He tries to convince himself it wasn't about Andy Herrera. It was about the fact that he hasn't touched a woman for a long while now, and this is his body's way of signaling him that he needs more, more than his hand is able to provide. He needs another warm body in his bed, even if for a night. He needs someone to move with him to a shared rhythm, someone he could share his pleasure with.

But right now, at four on a Wednesday morning, his hand is all he has.

He can tell himself all he wants that Andy Herrera was just the last woman he had seen, and he is even willing to admit that she is attractive, and that is the reason she was a part of his dream, but as he touches himself, as he starts to rub himself, her picture comes into his mind.

He is back in the dream that was so rudely interrupted by reality, and it is her hand touching him, gentle at first, then picking up the pace. He is currently somewhere between the forbidden fantasy and the harsh reality, somewhere between sleeping and wakefulness, but he is well aware of the fact that his daughter is back in her bed, and that he has to keep as quiet as he possibly can while he is so close, otherwise she will hear him. He bites down on his lower lip, then picks up the pace once again.

And then the picture in his mind changes. He sees her in her uniform, walking away from him. He sees her in that red sweater she wore for dinner just a few hours ago.

He rocks against his hand frantically now, and it doesn't take long before he comes. Her name almost slips past his lips, but he catches himself right on time.

He won't say her name as he comes, because it isn't about her at all.

Robert breaths heavily after he finally, finally, has his orgasm, after his body finally finds its release. It takes him a few long minutes to catch his breath and completely wake up, all the while the hot water is still running above his head.

He finishes his early morning shower quickly, then wraps a towel around his torso and heads to deal with the second problem he has on hand, after the first and far more pressing one has been taken care of. He looks in the mirror and cleans the blood that dried on his forehead and on his brow.

It didn't bother him in the slightest until that moment.

Beneath the clotted blood, there is quite a large cut, and Robert is sure that in a few hours, a nasty black bruise will appear on the same spot as well, exactly where he hit his head against the bedside table. He is lucky, though. It could have ended far worse.

After he pulls up a fresh pair of boxers, he slides back into bed, yet he can't fall asleep. He tosses and turns until the clock shows brightly the hour is half past five. Robert grunts in frustration, wears the first pair of training pants and top he can find in his closet, and goes for a run.

As he jogs he watches the sun rise above the city of Seattle, signaling a new day has come by. There is loud music coming from his headphones, but even though he has many distractions, his mind keeps wandering back to her.

Andy Herrera.

And he will never admit it, but as the night turns to dawn, and then turns to day on another Wednesday in his life, he sees his lieutenant lit in a completely different light, for the first day out of many to come.

***************

Andy's bedroom is too bright. Way too bright.

She grunts and tries to turn to the other side, tries to use her pillow to block the light, which she has no idea where it is filtering from, but it does nothing. If anything, every second that passes by makes everything so much worse.

She stands up on wobbly feet, then makes her way to the living room, her pillow still gripped in her hand.

Andy lies on the sofa, spreading her limbs, and covers her face with the pillow she hauled from her bedroom, letting out a loud grunt. It helps to some extent, the living room being cooler than the feeling she had beneath the covers, and she manages to block most of the offensive light.

But her head is pounding, and her mouth is dry. She knows exactly what she feels, yet she chooses to stay away from naming the sensation just yet. She can't say she has been feeling like that quite often in the last couple of years, but she had her fair share of fun when she was just past twenty one, long nights with liquor pouring, which ended up with her feeling exactly as she feels right now, and that was the better case scenario. In the worse one, she found herself throwing up in a restroom of a house that wasn't hers, or Ryan's.

Maybe if she will just ignore it, maybe if she will just lie on the sofa and pretend everything is alright, the sensation will pass at some point or another on its own.

She just has to lie completely still for enough time, and convince herself that she feels perfectly normal. After a while, she will start to believe it.

Then she hears the crackling of Maya's keys in the door.

No more pretending, it seems.

"Too loud." Andy moans, trying to stir around, trying to find a position comfortable enough for her to go back to sleep, or at least ease the headache.

"Good morning to you too, sleeping beauty." Maya answers, her voice chiming. Everything sounds heightened to Andy's ears at the moment. The sound of Maya's keychain as it lands on the counter, the noise of the water flowing as she refills her water bottle. Andy swears she can even hear her friend as she sips on her drink. Why does she have to do it so loudly?

"What time is it?" Andy asks, her voice hoarse.

"Almost noon." Maya answers.

Andy sighs, but does nothing that points out she is about to scrape herself off of the sofa and start her day. Then she can feel Maya's hand grabbing onto the pillow Andy uses as a shield from the sunlight, and tosses it to the other side of the room.

"I hate you." Andy grunts. She tries to open her eyes slowly, bit by bit, but fails at it miserably. Her head hurts, every muscle in her body feels sore, and she is grateful for the fact that at least she doesn't have to attend work today.

She wonders if Robert feels the same. She can't recall how many drinks she had, let alone count his, but she has a feeling he holds his liquor better than her.

If only she knew.

"Spill it." Maya demands. She pushes Andy's legs away and sits beside her best friend.

"Spill what?" Andy plays dumb. The last thing she wants or needs is her roommate playing detective, asking her questions, digging into her night, analyzing every look, every smile, every moment.

"What's the name of the reason you look like you have been hit by a truck, and why didn't you go home with him?" Maya asks.

So Travis and Dean didn't spread the rumor yet. Well, at least she has that as a small comfort.

"You stink." Andy complains, trying to change the conversation.

"Well, while you were getting your beauty sleep, I went for a run and hit the gym. Now tell me, what have you been up to last night? You came back home pretty late, and you are obviously hungover."

"I am not hungover." Andy lies. She obviously is, obviously drank too many of those boozy margaritas. There is a silence in the living room as Maya gives her best friend an opportunity to come clean before she has to take extreme measures to get the truth out of her.

"You know, if you could tell I am hungover, you could have at least brought over something to help with the sensation, instead of questioning me about my whereabouts last night." Andy blames.

"Open your eyes." Maya prompts. Andy does just so. The light hits her, and she has to blink a few times in order to adjust. Maya is offering her just what she needs. A large bottle of water in one of her hands and two pills of Advil in the other. She sits up straight, but she makes the maneuver too fast, and she feels queasy.

The last thing she wants is to throw up, on top of everything.

"I love you." Andy says as she pops the two pills into her mouth, contradicting completely her statement just from a few moments ago.

"This is the Bishop cure for hangover. Take the painkillers, drink the water, and go back to sleep. When you wake up, you will feel like a new person, trust me." Andy nods, follows the orders exactly as she has been told.

"Shit." Andy mutters as she remembers exactly how last night ended. The fact that Robert gave her a small peck on the cheek. The way she inhaled him deeply. His scent, an intoxicating combination of lime and expensive perfume. The fact that he took her car keys away and ordered her an Uber.

"What's wrong?" Maya asks.

"I can't go back to sleep." The brunette realizes.

"Andy, what is going on?" Maya sounds alarmed.

"I just... I need my phone." She calls, and drags her feet back to her bedroom. Everything from last night is a mess, her clothes and her belongings. Her bed is topped with a mountain of blankets, which Andy has no idea where they are from and how did they get there.

She goes through the mess until she finds her phone, praying that she hasn't done something stupid last night, that she hasn't texted anything inappropriate to Ryan, or to Jack. To her relief, the only texts she has, among two missed calls, are from Olivia, asking about her, wanting to make sure she made it home safe and sound.

Andy takes a deep breath and brushes her fingers through her hair as she presses the name Olivia Sullivan in her contact list, and waits for an answer.

"Andy." She hears her name coming from the other side of the line.

She turns the volume down before she speaks back. "Hey, Liv. Just called to say I made it home safely, and that you shouldn't worry. I just slept in for a bit, that's all."

"Good, because my dad was really worried about you."

"Yeah, about him... Is he around?" Andy asks.

"Yeah, do you want me to put him on?" The girl suggests.

"No, no, no. That won't be necessary." Andy reassures. The last thing she wants is to speak to her captain when the effect of the painkillers hasn't kicked in yet. "Can you just ask him if it will be alright if I come by soon to pick up my car keys?"

"Why did you leave your car here?" The girl inquires, too perceptive for Andy's good.

"No reason." She lies. "I just didn't feel like driving."

Andy thinks about how stupid it sounds, and she blames it on the hangover. She knows Olivia doesn't believe it, not even for a second, but apparently she is in luck today, and in an uncharacteristically manner, the teenage girl just drops the subject.

She can hear Olivia shouting to her father, but she doesn't put enough distance between her phone and her mouth as she does, and the yelling makes Andy flinch.

"Yeah, it is fine by him." The girl finally answers on the other side of the line.

"I will see you soon, then." Andy concludes, then hangs the phone.

She takes a deep breath and rubs her eyes, readying herself to deal with the rain of questions Maya is about to pour on her.

Andy makes her way back to the sofa, where Maya sits, waiting patiently for her return. The blonde lifts her eye up, and just like Andy expected, she doesn't wait even a second before she inquires again. "Well, I have treated you. Now, answers please." She demands.

"I am going to start with the end." Andy sighs. "I need you to drive me to Sullivan's house."

"Why the hell do you need to go to the captain's house on your day off? And why do you need me to drive you?"

Andy takes a deep breath, then lets it out slowly, preparing herself to deal with whatever comical reaction her friend might let out. "Because I was at his place last night, and I had a few too many drinks, so he insisted that I leave my keys with him and use a rideshare app to make it home." Andy summarizes the events of last night as shortly as she can.

"Care to elaborate on how you found yourself drunk in Sullivan's house on a midweek night? Wait, did you...?" Maya asks, her eyes opening widely.

"No, no!" Andy asks, knowing exactly what her roommate means. If Maya came up with that notion a few weeks ago, Andy would have laughed. It isn't like she has any plans to jump into bed with him, but now, after she saw another side of him last night, she can't find the idea as ridiculous anymore.

"I mean, you can't blame me for asking. He is your type, I know that much, and you can't tell me you don't find him handsome. Besides, you know what they say about men with large hands. Or is it large feet? Anyway, he has both." Maya shrugs.

"Maya, please don't ever talk about Sullivan's large feet." Andy swallows and shakes her head, trying to get rid of the inappropriate image. "You have to promise me what I am going to tell you is going to stay between us. Even though Dean and Travis already know parts of the story."

"How come they know before I do? Your best friend?" Maya asks.

Andy decides to take it as a promise to keep her secret guarded, and starts to share the events of last night. "Olivia invited me to have dinner with her and Sullivan last night. I decided to take a little inspiration, if you can call it so, from Dean, using his margaritas as an excuse to avoid conversation, because I thought it was going to be a horror show."

"But..." Maya coaxes, knowing there is more to the story.

"But I ended up spending most of the night with Sullivan instead of his daughter, who, strangely enough, wasn't her talkative self. And to be honest, it wasn't half bad. He made me laugh, and he was considerate and comfortable. It was his idea to add alcohol to the margarita, and he might have added a bit too much, given how my night ended and my morning began."

"I can't believe you ate some of Liv's food and didn't even think to pack some in Tupperware boxes and bring them to me." Maya huffs, and Andy can't possibly understand how this is the one thing she picked up on from the entire conversation.

"Come on, finish your water and I will drive you to his place." Maya encourages.

"I don't think I feel well enough to drive." Andy protests, but does as she was ordered, and finishes her drink before filling it to the rim again, then going back to her bedroom, trying to make herself look as presentable as she can.

She feels better as they make their way to the same house she spent her evening in, the painkillers finally starting to have the desired effect on her body. For some reason, she is nervous, her foot thumping up and down in the driver's seat.

"I will wait here until you say I can head back home." Maya calls.

"He doesn't bite, you know." Andy finds herself advocating for her captain.

She, of all people .

"Whatever you want." Andy settles as she makes her way to the front door and rings the doorbell.

The door is swung open by the sixteen years old, who flashes Andy a big smile, as if they haven't spent the entire previous evening in each other's company.

"Hey." The girl greets her warmly. "Do you want to come in? I think we have some coffee and I baked some cookies not long ago. They might still be warm."

"Stop trying to bribe me with food." Andy laughs, but the idea of a hot cup of coffee and some sweet treats sounds divine, and just on time her belly growls, letting her know that she is indeed hungry. She is about to take the girl's offer, about to sign Maya she can go back home, and head into the house.

She wants to ask Liv what she is doing at home just past noon on a school day, but her train of thoughts is being cut short by Robert.

Andy looks up at him as he leans against the doorframe and blocks the entrance with his body.

All signs of Robert, the man she met yesterday, the man who fixed her drinks and smiled warmly at her, are gone. He is all captain Sullivan again, with his pout and his harsh expression as he hands her the keys to her car, and says nothing.

"What happened to you?" Andy asks as she sees the cut on his forehead, and the bruise surrounding it. She reaches her free hand out and moves her thumb across the wound slowly.

She feels it again, feels that electric current at the base of her skull and down her spin as her finger brushes his skin lightly.

Then he takes a step away, distancing himself from her, and the moment is over. "It is nothing. I will see you tomorrow at the station Herrera." He blurts out coldly, then closes the door in her face.

Andy is left to stand there, staring at the closed door, wondering what the hell happened to the man she met just yesterday.


	8. Chapter 8 - Blackout

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's note: Hey everyone! Just wanted to say thank you for all the love for this story, and that I hope you will leave a comment if you want to and enjoy this chapter!

Andy has spent quite a lot of her free time in the Sullivan household in the two months that have passed since her very first visit.

She doesn’t know exactly why, isn’t sure how, but after the taco dinner, which was crowned somewhat of a success, she just continued visiting on her days off. The invitations from Olivia kept coming, growing closer together, asking her for dinner again or telling her about a new recipe she has been making and Andy just ought to try, one that she can’t possibly bring by the station the next time she comes over. It didn’t involve much persuasion on the part of the sixteen years old, to have Andy park her car in front of their house at least once a week, sometimes even more frequently than that.

He is never there, though. He never joins the two of them in whatever it is they might be doing.

Every time Andy comes by, she searches for him with her eyes, scanning the room for his tall figure, hoping he would smile at her like he did on that Tuesday evening. Hoping she will find Robert standing at the door, welcoming her in, and not the harsh captain Sullivan.

Her heart drops to her stomach every time she sees him, on the occasions he doesn’t leave the house well before Andy even has a chance to arrive. He is cold and distant, has nothing left from the spark in the eye and the warmth he radiated that evening, when they fixed their drinks and laughed and smiled at each other like they have no care in the world.

Sullivan just leaves the house, telling his daughter he will be back in a few hours, or locks himself in his bedroom if he has nowhere else to be.

Andy can’t possibly understand what she has done wrong, what made him give her such treatment. But it has been two months and she has had enough of his mood swings, has had enough of his silence.

If he wants to act like she is invisible, so be it. Two can play this game.

“Liv, why are we watching this?” Andy asks twenty minutes after the movie started.

“Because you have never seen Twilight, and I think it is a must watch.” Olivia replies, dead serious. In response, Andy throws some of the popcorn they are sharing at the direction of the younger girl.

“My dad isn’t going to be happy about the mess you are making.” Liv warns, talking about the man as if he is not present in the room, then fights back and throws the popcorn in Andy’s direction.

He is there with them for a change, but his nose is shoved so deep into a book Andy can’t see his face, and he pretends he can’t hear anything, even though the both of them know he just chooses to ignore them as long as Andy is around.

She hates the way his presence makes a ball of nerves settle low in her stomach, hates the fact that she is painfully aware he might be looking in her direction. She doesn’t need to please him, she doesn’t care about him, she is determined to treat him the same way he treats her. He is her captain, she is his lieutenant, and if he decided they can’t be friends, due to a reason that is beyond her understanding, so be it.

She has tried to convince herself she doesn’t need his friendship, doesn’t need his small smiles and his attention. So why does she feel like she has to tuck the piece of hair that keeps falling down on her face behind her ear, every time that electric shock goes through the back of her neck, when she can sense he is staring?

“I feel like I need to apologize for the way he treats you.” Liv whispers, barely enough for Andy to hear above Kristen Stewart’s voice coming from the big screen positioned against the wall across them.

“You really don’t.” Andy reassures the girl. “He is an adult, he acts how he sees fit. You don’t have to try to explain him.”

“I know… It is just… The taco dinner went so well, I thought things were headed in a different direction.” Liv shakes her head.

“Yeah, me too.” Andy murmurs, before she turns her attention to the very mediocre movie Olivia chose, claiming it is nothing short of a masterpiece.

Along with the physical training Andy has to make sure Olivia passes, the firefighter decides to help the girl acquire some taste.

Her thoughts drift, her mind blank and she can’t concentrate on the screen longer than five minutes at a time. Liv seems no less than fascinated, even if she already watched the movie a dozen times. Her words. Andy is drifting in her own world, so it takes her a moment to realize the power went out, the movie went black, and the entire lights in the house went with it, leaving the three of them in complete darkness.

“I will go check on that.” Sullivan says, raising from the couch he has been occupying quickly and going to make sure it isn’t just a little mishap in the fuse box he can take care of in no time.

The minutes pass by and nothing happens, the screen remains black, the room is still dark, and Andy suspects it is something larger than anything he can handle on his own. She slips her feet into her boots and goes outside, hearing Liv asking “Where are you going?” behind her.

“I will be right back.” Andy answers shortly.

She steps out the front door and looks around. The neighborhood is pitch black, the stars shining brightly above her. There is not even a single light as far as she can see.

Great. She is stuck in the Sullivan’s house in the middle of a blackout.

“None of the houses around has any electricity.” Andy notifies as she walks back into the living room, closing the door behind her with a soft knock.

“It isn’t just the houses around, it’s half the city.” He comes back from wherever he was, slamming his body back into the couch. “I made some phone calls. They don’t know what the problem is, and considering the upcoming weather, it can be hours until they get it fixed.”

As if someone above has heard them, a rain starts to pour out of nowhere, the sound of the drops slamming down on the roof loud and clear.

One just ought to love the weather in the state of Washington.

“Do they need us at the station?” Andy asks him. He might not have been in a chit chat mood for the past two months, but he has been as professional as ever, and she knows he is going to answer that one. The loss of electricity usually brings with it a handful of car crashes and people getting stuck in elevators, or in many other uncomfortable situations and tight spaces.

“No, they said they are handling it for now, but I will get a call if they need a backup.” Robert nods, not giving her a second look. But he can’t go back to his book, not when there isn’t enough light for them to do as much as to see each other clearly.

Neither of the adults noticed Olivia has disappeared, but as she comes back, her arms are full with candles and flashlights, everything she has managed to come up with and carry to the living room. She drops the pile on the sofa, and hands Andy a box of matches.

“Light them up!” Liv calls. “I have an idea.”

Andy filters through the stash, picking up the candles and places them around the living room as safely as she possibly can, as any trained firefighter would do. As she picks up the last candle, Robert reaches for one of the flashlights, and they bump into each other, head first.

His hand brushes against hers accidentally, and there it is again, the electricity, the buzz. She flinches, moves her hand away quickly, on an instinct. She doesn’t want to move away. She wants to feel it, wants to feel her skin almost coming alive where he touches her, but her body moves on his own accord.

“I am sorry.” Robert apologizes. He doesn’t look at her, doesn’t make eye contact, but rather fumbles with the flashlight he holds at hand until the thing gives in and lights up. He moves away, searching for an open space to place the little object when she whispers his name.

“Robert.”

He turns around to look at her, and even though the light coming from the candles doesn’t do much to brighten the room, she can still catch his eyes in hers.

And there are feelings there, ones she cannot name, but they exist, much like the ones she knows he can read in her eyes. It feels like the air is vibrating as they stare one into the other’s eyes. Neither of them wants to give in, neither of them is willing to be the one to break the strange connections their gazes make.

“Found it!” Liv calls as she strolls back into the living room, a rectangular shaped box in her hand, completely oblivious to the moment the two adults are sharing. As Olivia dusts the box off, the moment is over, and both of them go back to spacing the flashlights to have as much light as possible in the living room.

“Who is ready for a heated game of Monopoly?” Liv asks, her voice full of excitement as she shakes the box, the pieces inside rattling.

“I am out.” Her father calls, drops himself back into the couch and opens his book.

“Oh, I know you can’t read in the darkness like that, dad, so stop pretending!” Olivia calls out, revealing him for what he tried to do. She organizes the board quickly on the floor with a skilled hand, even though from the condition of the box, Andy knows this particular game hasn’t been in use for a long time now.

“I am in!” Andy calls, sliding her body down and sitting with her back leaning against the sofa. “It isn’t like you can play Monopoly on your own anyway. Besides, I have nothing better to do now that we cannot watch Robert Pattinson sparkling in the sunlight.” Andy teases.

“Oh, you don’t give enough credit to Livia. Trust her to have a game of Monopoly on her own.” Robert lets out, his voice flat. The book he has been reading is closed, he isn’t trying to pretend anymore, but he is still sunk deep into the couch, avoiding their company.

“Come on, dad!” Liv is trying to persuade, being her relentless self. “Playing Monopoly is no fun with just two people! And you said it yourself, it can take hours for them to fix the electricity. Are you really just gonna sit there and pout for the next who knows many hours?”

“Fine.” Her father gives up. “But I need to lean against the sofa, so Herrera has to move a bit. I am not as young as I used to be, sitting on the floor is quite a task for a man my age.”

“Yeah, yeah, you are old dad, got that.” Liv rolls her eyes. Robert finds a spot right next to Andy, and as he glides down, she can feel his warmth radiating off of him and into her skin. He is sitting close to her, too close, close enough for her to smell him, even when she doesn’t inhale on purpose. He has a clean scent she can’t really put her finger on, and his closeness does something to her, something she can’t deny, but very much wishes it would disappear.

She can’t possibly understand him. Her captain. Sullivan. Robert. One moment he is giving her a cold shoulder, and on the other he makes some half believable excuse as to why he has to sit close to her, so close their bodies are almost touching, so close she can feel that electricity once again.

And she is done, and she is tired of trying to understand what he wants. She tries to move away, tries to distance herself from him, the man who has been occupying her thoughts more often than she would like to admit. She wants to move away, but she can’t, it seems like she is glued to the floor so close to him. Her body refuses to budge, even though her mind tells it to do just that.

Andy just sighs, and takes the fake money Olivia has been handing her.

*******

It has been a few hours since the power went out, and the house is cold. The heating went off with every other electrical appliance in the house, but for the length of their game Andy was able to manage the house growing chillier, or maybe she was just distracted as she tried to win the game, beating the father and the daughter in the process.

However, their game is over, and Olivia called it a night. She has school in the morning, and by the looks of it, the electricity isn’t coming back on anytime soon, so she opted on spending her time catching up on some sleep instead of awkwardly trying to pass the time with her dad and her friend who is fifteen years older than her.

She can’t blame the girl, not really, not when the tension between the two adults during the game was so noticeable. She can’t blame Olivia for taking the first opportunity she saw to escape, and frankly, given the chance, Andy would have done the same.

Sullivan is nowhere to be found either, and she just stands there, looking around, feeling clueless, and then the cold really hits her. She feels the chill going up her spin, feels the goosebumps raising on her skin all at once. She has nothing to cover herself with, considering she thought she was going to just move as quickly as possible from her cozy car to the heated house.

“Here, I thought you might need it.” Andy jumps in surprise as she hears his voice, ripping her away from the train of thoughts. He stands close to her, and she has to lift her head up to look him in the eyes. Both of his hands are reached out, one of them with a blanket, the other with a hoodie Andy guesses is his by the size. “I thought you might be getting pretty cold.”

“Thank you, but I think I am going to go now.” She wants to leave, wants to go and never look back. She can’t stay out here with him, because he confuses her, frustrates her to no end with gestures of kindness like this one. He does something like this, something that shows he really cares, but Andy is sure he will go back to being distant in no time at all.

“Can you stay?” He requests. Andy’s inside is bubbling as she hears him voicing the simple question. He wants her around.

“It is still raining heavily, and the electricity is still out. I don’t want one of my firefighters to get into an accident if I have any control over it.”

And there it is again. He does or says something to shut her out, to remind her of the difference of rank the two of them have. But he is right, she rather not put herself in any unnecessary risks, so she takes the hoodie from his hand, and sends him a small smile that is supposed to convey a message of gratitude.

She stares at his free hands for a moment, and she realizes that her roommate was right. He has large hands, indeed.

Andy feels her face heating up, but prays it doesn’t show on her, or at least he won’t notice it in the midst of all the darkness.

She is going to kill Maya for putting that idea in her head.

She grabs the blanket when she has the hoodie on, and wraps it around her shoulders, for whatever extra warmth it can provide.

“Let me get the fireplace going. It is old, and I haven’t had a chance to examine how well it works, but I did check on it when we moved in, and it seemed decent enough.”

“Most of the people I know don’t have wood lying around to light up the fireplace, if they even have one.”

“Most people haven’t lived a few years in Montana. Liv and I learned the hard way to always be prepared for the cold.”

Andy feels better already. The hoodie he gave her is thick and warming, and it is so big she is practically drowning in it. There is no doubt the piece of clothing belongs to him. She can’t help it, can’t help watching Robert as he moves logs around and sets them in the fireplace, her eyes moving with every step he takes. She lets herself imagine, lets her thoughts wander, and the image in her mind changes. She is wearing nothing but his hoodie and a smile, her long legs exposed, provoking him as he fumbles with the fireplace, trying to light it up, his shirt off.

She is going to kill Maya for putting the idea in her head, revive her, and then kill her again.

He has managed to get a small fire going while she was tangled in the mass of her inappropriate thoughts, and by the time she hears him calling her name, there is a warm light spreading across the room, fighting the cold and the darkness.

“Andy, come sit by the fire.” He invites. “You will feel better in no time.” Robert promises. He takes two of the cushions from the sofa and places them on the floor, so they will be able to sit comfortably.

“Oh, I forgot, you are too old to sit on the floor.” Andy teases. She is scared for a moment, not sure how he is going to react, but he cracks a smile at her, one warm and genuine, and suddenly all of the tension in her body disappears like it was never there at all.

She lowers herself to the throw pillow he placed for her as he does just the same, the smile never fading from his lips. He was right, she does feel better, but she is not entirely sure it has anything to do with the warmth of the fireplace on her face and on her icy fingers.

He reaches a hand out, and even though Andy isn’t sure why, she doesn’t move, doesn’t flinch. She is shivering, and it might be anticipation or something else entirely, she can’t tell, but with all honesty, she doesn’t care. She never felt this way before. It is a reaction of her body she can’t possibly explain.

“Can I ask you what does that necklace mean? It is obviously not the first letter of your first or last name.” He inquires. His fingers outline the letter E, smoothing his thumb over it, then he releases it all together. Andy is tempted to ask him to continue, to beg him to stay that close to her, but she does nothing of this sort.

“My mom died when I was nine years old.” The sentence slips out of her lips easily. It has been over twenty years now, and she is far, far away from the girl she used to be, the girl who was so ashamed for not having a mother, knowing she will get pitiful looks at best, and bullied for being different at worse. She is far from being that girl, but that doesn’t mean it is something she just casually brings up in a conversation. But with him... With him it is easy, even if sometimes she feels like he does everything to make it impossibly hard. “Her name was Elena, and this necklace belonged to her. She didn’t leave many personal mementos after her, so it is something rare and special for me. My dad gave it to me the day I turned eighteen, saying she would have liked me to own it. I haven't taken it off ever since, I just wear it tucked in my shirt, to avoid questions, much like this one.”

“I am sorry.” Robert apologizes, and it sounds so sincere coming from his lips.

“You don’t have to be. It has been a long while, and it still hurts, but just less, I think. I was so young, it isn’t like I remember much of her anyway.” Andy shoves the pendant back into her shirt, trying to put the whole subject behind them. “Now that I have answered your questions, can I ask you something in return?” Robert nods, and she continues. “It felt like we made so much progress during the taco dinner, and then I came here and it felt like everything disappeared and we were back at square one. I guess my question is, did I do something wrong? Can’t we be friends?”

He doesn’t want to hurt her, doesn’t want her to take the blame for something that is completely his fault, so he decides to bend the truth, just a little bit. It isn’t a lie, but is not the reason he has been keeping her away ever since the night he woke up at four in the morning, sweating and hard for her.

“I guess it is hard for me to open up for people, ever since Claire died. It was always just me and Livia, and Luke, I mean Ripley.” Robert corrects himself, so Andy will be able to understand who he is talking about. “But even my friendship with him changed. After Claire passed away, he was always more of an uncle figure to Livia than a friend to me.”

“All you have to do is just say something about yourself.” Andy advises. “You don’t have to pour your guts out the first time you meet somebody, just say something that doesn’t have anything to do with work.”

“Wait, wasn’t this enough?” Robert raises his brow. “And here I thought I was showing my heart on my sleeve for you.”

“Very funny. Come on, give it a try. Say the first thing you have in mind.” Andy coaxes.

“Promise you won’t laugh?”

“I promise.” Andy nods, but she already can feel the chuckle building inside her, can’t help it, even though she has no idea what he is about to say.

“I…” He starts, then shakes his head. “Forget it, it’s ridiculous.” He calls out.

“Oh come on!” Andy coaxes. “You are killing me here with the suspense!”

“Fine.” He breaths out, obviously not satisfied with the direction the conversation is headed, but only has himself to blame. “It has been a while since I have been with a woman.”

It takes Andy a moment to realize what she just heard, but when she understands it completely, her eyes widen, and she gives him a surprised look. “Wait, you haven’t had sex since your wife died?” She asks, whisper-shouting, well aware of the girl upstairs, but can’t help her surprise.

“I said it has been a while, I haven’t said I turned into a monk and joined a convent.”

She tries to hold the laughter in, really does, but she can’t help it, and in a moment she is in the midst of a fit of giggles she isn’t able to control. He pulls the pillow under him and throws it in her direction, hitting Andy straight in the face, which does nothing to help the laughter subside.

“Okay, I am done.” She promises. “Thank you for sharing this with me, but if I am honest, this is the kind of information you would rather share with another man. One that you trust and you are close to, otherwise you are not going to hear the end of it.”

“You aren’t going to let me hear the end of it either.” Robert states more than questions.

“Oh, I am going to have so much fun with this new information.” There is a silence for a moment, one she fills with the question “Can I ask why?”

He looks down, avoiding eye contact. It seems like he is looking for the pillow he has just used as a weapon against her, so Andy throws it back at him. His fingers start to fumble with it immediately, and it feels like the atmosphere in the room changed all of a sudden, burdening on his shoulders.

“Things have been different ever since Livia has grown older. As you probably can tell, she is very perceptive, she notices everything, big and small. When she was younger, it would have been easier for me to have her sleeping over at a friend’s house so I could have the house all to myself. But she is practically an adult now, whether I like it or not, and I have been burying myself in so much work anyway, I don’t have much time to date.”

“You are full of excuses, have anyone told you that yet?” She asks.

“Watch it, Herrera.” He threatens, but there is a smile on his face, and she knows he isn’t mad about her observation.

“No, seriously, I can help you!” She calls out, as if she suddenly came up with the most brilliant idea in the whole entire world. “I can wingwoman for you. We can go to Joe’s on a Saturday we are off duty, and I will help you find someone you like. I know some of the doctors at Grey Sloan, I can ask around about any cute and single nurses or doctors.”

“It isn’t really necessary.” Robert hesitates, trying to get her to drop the idea with all his might. “I am content with the way things are, I really am. Truly, I don’t know why I even brought it up.”

“Because you are not happy with the way things are. You need to get back on the horse, and you have found yourself just the right woman to help you do so.” He says nothing for a moment, and Andy thinks she might have actually gotten to him. “Please.”

It is a bad idea. Going out for drinks with the woman who had starred in more than one of his sexual, sensual dreams is a bad idea, and having her trying to play the matchmaker is even worse. But maybe it isn’t that bad, now that he comes to think of it. Maybe he will actually meet someone at that bar, and when he will finally, finally touch another woman, the forbidden fantasies and the cold showers at five in the morning will come to a stop all together.

“Fine, I am in.” Robert huffs, not entirely satisfied with the new arrangement of theirs. Andy is about to say something, keep up the conversation, but instead, she lets out a yawn, can’t help it.

“I think I should head home.” She gets up from the floor. It takes her a few long moments to find her balance, and in that moment, Robert jumps to his feet, and stands in front of her, blocking her path to the front door.

“The storm out there is still going pretty strong. And as you can tell the power is still out.” He tries to advocate against the idea.

“As you can tell Robert, I am really, really tired.” She gives him a weak smile.

“Why won’t you sleep in my bed, then? I don’t mind spending the night on the sofa.” He suggests.

Oh no. No, no, no, she is not going to go into his bedroom, even when he is not there. Bad, bad things tend to happen whenever she finds herself in bedrooms of attractive men.

“I will sleep on the sofa.” Andy comes up with somewhat of a solution. “But just for a bit, just a power nap to help me survive the drive home.” She is lying there in a blink of an eye, propping a throw pillow under her head, and using the blanket that she had wrapped around her shoulders to cover her entire body. “Just promise me you will wake me up as soon as the power comes back on.”

“I will.” Robert makes his way around the living room, adjusting the flashlights and candles that are still going so she will be able to sleep as comfortably as possible. When he looks back at her, she is out like a lightning, her breaths even and slow, her entire body relaxed. He walks toward her, until he stands right where her head is. He lowers himself to his knees, then pushes a piece of her hair back behind her ear.

It is every bit as soft as he imagined it to be, and Robert knows it won’t ease the dreams, not even a bit.

The power comes back up not even a half an hour later, but she looks so peaceful, so small, he doesn’t have it in him to wake her up.

Not quite yet.


	9. Chapter 9 - Trust

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! Thank you for coming back! I hope you are enjoying this story, and if you want, please leave a review :)

“Why do I have to do this?” Ben grunts as Andy tosses the stopwatch in his direction. Her throw is perfect, and the object lands right in his grasp.

“Because, you have a teenage boy at home. You know how to speak in their secret language.” Andy explains before she is headed back down the stairs, where Liv is eager to start running through the course Andy planned just for her. She needed help, needed someone to stand at the other end and count times, needed someone to stand near the gym and make sure the teenage girl doesn’t slack or take any shortcuts, but doesn’t go too far and hurt herself, either .

“This is a twisted logic, and that isn’t even really true. Tuck ignores me most of the time, has his head stuck in whatever video game he is playing, or in the messages he gets from whoever girl he texts back and forth with. In times he does look at me, we end up arguing over some meaningless thing or the other.”

“See, I told you. You speak the secret language of the teenagers fluidly.” Andy shrugs. “And to be honest, I tried to bribe pretty much everyone to help me with this. You were the only one willing.”

“You owe me for this, Herrera.” Ben calls out, pointing his finger out in her direction.

“We will see about that.” Then she disappears, leaving Ben with the watch in his hand and strict orders as to what Olivia must do, no cheating and no cutting back on corners, and makes her way to where the sixteen years old is already waiting, wearing full gear.

They have been training together for a few months now, every time Olivia manages to come to the firehouse once school is over, and after she is done with her homework, of course.

Andy knows Olivia still has a long road ahead of her if she wants to make it through, if she wants to stand there and earn her firefighter badge as she graduates from the academy. She has gotten stronger over the past few months, her fitness coming up from somewhere near non-existence to something Andy can actually work with and improve until she is sure Olivia will handle the physical tests. She is a smart kid, Andy knows that much, and she will make it through the written exams if she takes the time to actually study, unlike the way she slacks when it comes to her school work.

Who needs to know math or chemistry when she knows what she wants to do in life, and it has nothing to do with any of the boring subjects they teach at school, the girl always argues. Andy had the same mindset when she was the girl’s age, and she wasn’t a straight A student herself, not by a long shot. So every time the girl comes to the station with another graded paper she tries to hide from her father, Andy just laughs, and tries to not find herself in the middle of that particular issue.

Liv will be able to make it through the tests, both the written and the fitness ones, but that is not what Andy is concerned about. She knows what it’s like to be a woman in the fire academy. She knows how much you have to prove, how resilient you have to be as every man in the room looks at you like you don’t belong, as if you got lost and arrived there by mistake.

You have to grow the thickest skin, and Andy had another woman to go through the training with, someone she could share some of the burden with. Olivia may not be as lucky.

Andy’s goal, more than anything, is getting Olivia in a state of mind where quitting is just not a possibility. And that takes time and resilience, on both ends.

She just hopes the girl wants it bad enough, otherwise, she is doomed for a heartbreak.

“Are you ready?” Andy asks as she finally reaches the starting position she set, at the far back side of the building.

“As ready as I think I will ever be.” Olivia nods, a big smile spread across her face. She might complain whenever Andy tells her to do another set of crunches or adds five more pounds to the weight she already carries, she might sweat and curse, but Liv always has that smile on her face that tells Andy she is exactly where she wants to be, making progress, baby step after baby step.

“Warren, are you ready?” Andy talks into the radio she decided to use, switching them to a private channel.

“Herrera, it isn’t an active five alarm fire, she just has to run a few times around the station.” She hears Ben’s voice over the other end, sounding ill tempered and pissed. She will have to make it up to him, she guesses, because she will need at least one other set of hands to help her from time to time, depending what she comes up with, and God knows no one else from the A shift will be willing to help her train the girl on the rare free time they have while they are on duty.

If she is being honest with herself, she thinks she might have agreed to something that was way out of her league on that day in the beanery, and it stretches her creativity to levels she didn’t know were possible.

“Okay, ready, set, go!” Andy calls, telling Ben to have the stopwatch going. The girl starts her track all the way to the front of the house, wearing turnout gear that is not quite her size, and a full oxygen tank Andy hopes won’t end up flattening Olivia face down to the stairs she has to climb.

She needs to follow her, needs to make sure everything is alright until she is in Ben’s eyesight. Andy doesn’t know what she will do if something happens to the sixteen years old under her watch. She has to follow her, but instead, her mind drifts for a moment as her body is trying to keep up with the very determined teenager.

She thinks back to where she found herself last night. Or maybe it is better be described as early this morning. She woke up on the sofa as the first rays of sun filtered through the big windows in his house, her back aching, her neck stiff. He was there, his nose back in the book, wide awake, and when he heard her stirring before she finally woke up, he gave her that look, one filled with compassion and care.

He didn’t have it in him to wake her up when she was sleeping so peacefully, he said, and for some reason, she wasn’t mad to find out that he let her sleep way past the moment the electricity came back on and the storm outside subsided.

It was only when she made it home that she realized she was still wearing his hoodie, and as of the current moment, it rests in her locker of all places, neatly folded, smelling like whatever fabric softener he uses.

She needs to get it back to its rightful owner, she knows that much, but for some reason, she can’t shake the image of her wearing that particular hoodie, and nothing else.

As Andy watches the girl make her way through the few obstacles she placed in the barn in advance, Andy wonders if he had stayed up all night as she slept like a baby.

“You can do it!” Andy calls excitedly at the girl, who has to carry the dummy across the barn.

“Shut up!” The girl shouts back, breathless, which makes Andy roll in a fit of laughter.

When Olivia finishes her tasks at the barn and runs out of Andy’s sight, she clears the few objects the girl left behind, knowing Ben will take good care of her.

She thinks about the promise she made Robert the other night, and deciding she won’t let him find a way out of their agreement so easily. They are friends now, after all, and friends take care of each other, they look out for one another, making sure the other is happy.

And besides, she could use a few drinks with someone who is not Maya or Vic. She refuses to go out drinking with either one of her female coworkers, because mysteriously enough, every time Andy sits in a bar with either of them, or worse, with the two, the conversation always drifts to her, to the way she has to to talk to a stranger at the other side of the bar, to find her way back on the horse again with someone she doesn't work with or hasn’t been her neighbor her entire life.

It will be nice to focus on the non-existent love life of someone else, for a change.

Andy makes a mental note to ask Robert if next Saturday works for him, since they are off shift, she thinks, as she makes her way up the staircase to watch Olivia taking the very last steps of the drill.

“Come on, give me one more!” Warren coaxes excitedly as Liv moves another weight from one corner of the gym to the other, the gear still on her.

“Done.” Olivia pants, sitting back on the floor and trying to catch her breath.

“How long did it take?” Andy asks, trying to take a peek at the watch Ben is holding in his hand, but is able to see nothing.

“Shit. I didn’t start it.” That earns Ben an angry glare from Andy, and a laugh from Liv that turns into a choked cough as she realizes she didn’t quite catch her breath yet.

She will need to find herself a new co-trainer, after all.

“What the hell is this?” Andy hears a voice behind her, one that she has grown to know quite well in the past few months. She doesn’t want to turn, doesn’t want to see the expression on his face, doesn’t want to meet his eye, knowing nothing good can come out of the situation she just found herself in, judging by the tone he just decided to use.

But she does it anyway. As reluctant as she might be, she turns around slowly, until her gaze meets his.

He looks angry, comically so, like in that Pixar movie she is too embarrassed to admit she watched about emotion coming to life. His lips are a straight, narrow line, and he looks down at the three of them from above, being even taller than Warren. In any other situation, when his rage wasn’t directed at her, his entire expression would have probably made her laugh.

She has been on the other end of his wrath her fair share of times. Whenever she made the wrong call in an incident, or talked back to him, or disobeyed an order, he was more than eager to give her a piece of his mind about her insubordination, about how she is nothing but a lieutenant, mostly in the first few weeks since his arrival.

But this, she has never seen him quite this furious. It feels like the anger trickles off him and fills the air, and the atmosphere, which was quite relaxed up until the moment he has made his presence known, has changed, and now it sits heavy around them, the tension waiting to be broken by the words of one of the people in the room.

“Dad, I…” Olivia is the first one to try to explain, but when he reaches his hand out to stop her, she goes silent again.

He loves his daughter, Andy knows that much. She can get away with her fair share of troubles, being his only child, being just the two of them, together against the world. She can get away with slacking on school work and sliding back into the house two hours after curfew, but this… Andy has never seen him like this, and it says a lot, considering the fact he is the kind of captain that no matter what she does, it just isn’t quite good enough.

“Warren, take Olivia down and help her get all the equipment back to place, make sure nothing is damaged.” He doesn’t yell, doesn’t scream at the top of his lungs. If Andy is honest with herself, the last time she heard him speaking so quietly was yesterday night, when they were sitting on those pillows in front of the fireplace.

It is different now. If yesterday was all about hushed voices and friendly banter, today it seems as if he is whispering because it is the only way he is able to keep all of his anger somewhat at bay.

“Yes sir.” Ben nods, then helps Liv up on her feet and down the stairs again.

“Herrera, my office. Now.” He mutters, then runs down the stairs behind his daughter so fast Andy barely has time to comprehend what is happening. She does as he orders, though, doesn’t want to get herself into more trouble than she is already in, even though she can’t say wholeheartedly she understands why he is so upset.

She guesses she is going to find out, sooner rather than later.

The door to his office is closed by the time she arrives. She takes a peek through the window, seeing him pacing back and forth across the small space, his thumb brushing across his bottom lip.

Andy takes a deep breath, and tucks that god awful strand of hair that refuses to stay put in her ponytail behind her ear. She is about to knock on the door before she hears him calling “Come in, Herrera.”

“You wanted to see me?” Andy asks, pretending to be oblivious as she makes her way into his office and closes the door behind her. She thinks it might buy her some time, time that she will use to assess the situation and find the best way possible out of the mess she got herself into, not quite knowing how or why.

“Please tell me I didn’t see what I think I saw.” His voice is low again. He stands with his fists on his desk now, and Andy can’t help but notice he didn’t ask her to sit down, so she is left standing. 

There is a part of her that tells her to push his limits, to see what his reaction will be when she tells him she needs him to explain to her what he thinks he saw. But it is not the time nor the place to tease him, not by the way his eyes are suddenly on her, wide open, and she can see his whole body tense, like a wild animal waiting for the right moment to attack on its prey. “Sir, with all due respect, I don’t understand. You have seen us in the gym together a few times now.”

“I didn’t know you are training her to be a goddamn fire fighter!” Sullivan yells all of a sudden. Andy doesn’t dare to twist her head and look back, but she knows his roar was probably audible all the way to the barn, and that it ignited the curiosity of everyone on the shift .

Great, more gossip and rumors. Exactly what she needs.

“All I have ever seen her doing is some squats and a little bit of jogging around the building, and I just thought, stupidly enough, she decided to work out, decided to do some activity other than going back and forth between the kitchen and her bedroom for a change, and I was happy about it. I didn’t know you were training her to be a firefighter.” He repeats that last sentence, this time his voice somewhat under control. “And for some reason, I have a feeling you are behind all of this, considering the fact that you have been close with her ever since the first day she showed her face in the station.”

“It was her idea. She came to me.” Andy says. She didn’t do anything wrong, didn’t break any laws, so why does she feel like she has to keep her head down and her tone apologetic?

“I couldn’t care less!” He yells again, and the way he throws his fists against his desk startles her, makes her jump slightly in the air and take a small step back, separating herself from him, even though the desk is a barrier between their bodies.

And she doesn’t understand. Doesn’t understand how the man who opened up to her in front of the fireplace last night, the man who stayed up till it was near morning just to make sure she is alright, is the same man in front of her now, with the cold and distant look in his eyes.

“I don’t know what you want me to say.” Andy’s gaze is still on the desk that separates the two of them as she searches inside her to find whatever words he wants to hear.

“I want you to say you won’t train her anymore, and that you get that idea out of her head.”

“What?” Andy questions, her head shooting up to meet his eyes.

“You heard me, lieutenant, you know I don’t like to repeat the same order twice.”

“Sir, with all due respect, we are not talking about a ten years old we have to fish out of the sewer system. We are talking about your daughter, who made a decision about the career she would like to pursue once she is out of high school. She is almost an adult, I think that she should have a say in what she…”

“My daughter!” He yells again, interrupting her. “My daughter, the only person I have, and I will not let you compromise her health and safety chasing some stupid dream she has in her head!” He takes a deep breath, trying to calm himself down, and when she looks at him, she sees him.

She sees the man who opened up to her about Olivia being all that he got, and it scares her, how easily he goes from one to the other. It scares her, the fact she never knows who she is talking to. She is supposed to be terrified, supposed to turn and run away from him as fast as her legs carry her.

Yet something inside, something she can’t deny, attracts her toward him, toward the man who suddenly looks so broken.

“Andy.” He uses her first name in a way that makes her heart skip a beat. “You, and I, and everyone else out there, we all know what a toll this job carries. A price no one tells you about when you are in the academy, and that the people who look up to us as we rescue their loved ones don’t see. But it is there, the risk and the constant death threat hanging above our heads like a knife. Damn it, Montgomery even has a nasty scar running across his chest to prove just how dangerous this job can be. How you should be willing to lay down your life on the line every single day if it comes down to it. And it does come to it, more often than any of us likes to think about.”

He takes a deep, shaky breath, and Andy knows he is not done, not yet. “I am more than willing to lay down my life for this job, but I will die if something happens to my daughter, knowing I could prevent it.” Then he adds with a voice even smaller, nothing above a breath. “Please, Andy. She is all that I got. I won’t be able to keep living without her. I can’t lose her.”

Andy nods, can’t help it, even though she doesn’t fully have the chance to think his request through. “Is she still allowed to hang out around here, with me?”

“Yeah, I think being around you makes her happy, you know?” Andy can’t help the smile that creeps up the corners of her lips as she hears him continue. “I want my daughter to know I encourage her to do anything, that she can be anything she desires. If she wants to pursue her talent in the kitchen, or anything else, as long as I know she won’t put herself in danger day in and day out.”

“Okay.” Andy nods, still a little bit shaken by the way he lashed out at her not even five minutes ago, but she doesn’t let him see it, doesn’t let him sense how much impact he has on her.

“That will be all, Lieutenant Herrera.” He waves his hand in the general direction of the door, signaling her to leave. She doesn't have to be ordered twice, and as she closes the door behind her, she wonders what the hell she has just agreed to.

**********

When Andy walks into the beanery, Liv’s favorite place of hiding while she is at the station, it smells burnt, like someone decided to purposely set it on fire just to watch it burn.

The girl sits by the table, a piece of burnt toast in her hand, one she doesn't eat, just scrapes the char off with a fork. Andy enters without a word, opening the fridge so the girl won’t be startled by her presence. She doesn’t have any appetite, not when her tummy turns, so she settles for a cold bottle of water, and finds a place in front of Liv.

The girl looks broken, her shoulders slumped, her body tense, and you can sense the uncanny resemblance to her father, whom Andy saw in the exact same position not even ten minutes ago. 

The person who said the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree was certainly right, at least regarding the Sullivans.

Andy places her palm on top of Liv’s hand and asks. “Why didn’t you tell me he didn’t know you wanted to be a firefighter?”

“Because…” The girl takes a minute to think, then blurts out. “Because he is your boss, and if you knew he wasn’t on board with the idea, you wouldn’t have agreed to help me.”

It is only half of the truth. If Andy knew her father wasn’t on board with her plan to become a firefighter, and decided to help Liv anyway, it would have made a tear between the two, one Liv isn’t sure they would ever be able to repair.

Trust. That is the most important thing her father believes in. He doesn’t trust people easily, doesn’t let many people in, but when he finally puts his trust in someone, he does it wholeheartedly, without a doubt. And if this said trust is to ever be broken… Well, her father is not a man known for handing out second chances.

Liv knew it was only a matter of time before her father finds out and loses his temper, but at least now Andy can say she wasn’t aware Robert was in the dark about Liv’s intentions, and really mean it.

“And why didn’t you talk about it with him, then?”

“Because I am sick and tired with the way he treats me!” The girl yells, dropping the fork onto the floor, but doesn’t bother to bend down and retrieve it. She has her manners, though, and Sullivan raised his daughter as well as he possibly could, so Andy knows that once the anger subsides, the girl will clean up the mess she made.

Andy opens her bottle and takes a big swig, giving Olivia as much time as she needs to process her thoughts.

“He treats me with a kid’s glove. He handles me like a delicate flower that is bound to fall at the first sight of wind coming at it. When I was younger, I really wanted to play soccer. I wanted to run after a ball, wanted to be a part of a team ready to do everything to win, and to be frank, I really liked the game. Can you guess what extracurricular activity he made me sign up for?” Andy shakes her head, saying no, she has no idea. “Painting.” The girl rolls her eyes, and Andy is glad she didn’t have any water in her mouth, otherwise she would have choked on them.

“No way.” Andy refuses to believe.

“Oh, it happened. And I am just putting it out there, I am not a Picasso.” Liv shrugs, and the remark just makes Andy laugh even harder.

She is really something else, this kid.

“I know that he loves me, and I know all he wants is to protect me, but I am sick and tired with the way he feels he has to wrap me in bubble wrap and keep me hidden from the world.” Liv sighs, then murmurs something that Andy barely catches, but he is there, hanging above the girl’s shoulders. “All I want is to be a firefighter, to keep his legacy.” The girl emphasizes the word his, even though the two of them know who she is talking about. “I want to try, and if I fail, so be it, but at least I know I failed because I wasn’t good enough, and not because I wasn’t given the chance to prove myself in the first place.”

Andy tries to come up with the words to comfort the girl, to give her a sliver of hope, but she finds none, so she just sits there in silence.

“All I have ever known is firefighters and firehouses. Uncle Luke, and the firefighters back in Montana… They practically raised me, since I had nowhere else to go. Being a firefighter… That is all I have ever known.”

“I know how you feel.” Andy nods, because she does. She remembers being a kid, hanging around the station with Ryan while her father was working, learning to read or running around in the barn. “I don’t think I will be able to make your dad turn his mind around about the whole idea, but, I do have a suggestion for you, if you are interested.”

“I am listening.” The girl leans forward now, seems genuinely intrigued.

“We don’t have to stop our training, we just have to make sure he doesn’t see us doing it. It means that we won’t be able to work with the gear all the time, but he barely leaves his office anyway, so as long he won’t be around, it isn't supposed to keep us off track too much.”

“I don’t know if it is a good idea.” Liv hesitates.

“Why not?” Andy asks. “You know what they say. What you don’t know, can’t hurt you. Besides, once you are eighteen, you can do whatever you want, and I am sure your father will come around the idea once he understands just how much you want that.”

Liv can’t answer that, not truly. She knows her father is able to forgive her for anything, yet with Andy… They are still not close enough for him to forgive and forget lying to him, sneaking behind his back, and Liv thinks that maybe, other than her, his own daughter, no one will ever be able to get past his guards.

It feels like her father and Andy are going one step forward and two steps back, but maybe, just maybe, they will be able to make some real progress. If Liv decides to compromise it… Her father might not ever give Andy a real chance.

Nevertheless, she says. “Fine. But we have to be really, really careful. He cannot find out about this.”

“You have my word.” Andy nods.

“Now, what do you want to have for dinner?” The girl asks, rising from her seat, and Andy knows she feels better already, by the way she moves like a storm around the kitchen, opening and closing all the cupboards, searching for something she can work with.

“Spaghetti and meatballs?” Andy answers the questions with one of her own.

“Spaghetti and meatballs it is.” The girl repeats, and Andy can swear she is able to hear a smile in her voice.


	10. Chapter 10 - Joe's

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! Thank you for reading and reviewing and I hope you enjoy this chapter too!

He shouldn't be here. He shouldn't be here, but they made plans for tonight, or at least that is what he thinks happened when Andy suggested they will head to Joe's together as soon as they have a Saturday night neither of them is on shift, so she will help him with his rather poor flirting skills.

But then, they haven't spoken to each other much since he found out Andy was training his daughter to be a firefighter. He was angry, they both were, and for the last couple of shifts that stretched out like chewed bubble gum, they haven't exchanged more words than what is absolutely necessary between a captain and his lieutenant. .

But the anger inside him subsided eventually, and he hopes hers did the same somewhere along the long days they shared at the station, with nothing but awkward, tensed silence to fill the gaps between one call to the other. Because he stands by the entrance to her apartment right now, and if she is still furious with him for telling her to stop doing something he knows both Livia and Andy want badly, then this will go down south rather quickly.

He takes a deep breath, and before he has a chance to regret it, he knocks on the door, then shoves his hands down deep into the front pockets of his jeans.

"Captain." Maya looks surprised when she sees him standing at her threshold, as if he doesn't exist outside the world of the fire department, even if she knows he does, probably heard Andy's stories from the countless hours she has spent in his house.

"Bishop." He nods in her direction, acknowledging her presence. "I was wondering, is Andy home?" They stare at each other for a minute while he still stands on the other side of the door, Maya sizing him up and down, debating if it is the best idea to let him in, or she should just tell a little white lie of some sort to push him away back to wherever it is that he came from.

"In her bedroom." She gives in finally, opening the door fully from the crack she used to peek at him, and lets him in. "Last door to the left." She guides him in the right direction.

"Thank you." He says, knowing she could have blown him off, telling him Andy is out or is feeling unwell. He doesn't mean to pry, but his eyes scan the living room as he walks in anyway. The apartment is small and cozy, full of life and little mementos, and looks nothing like the house he shares with his teenage girl. There are pictures everywhere, of Bishop, Andy and Hughes all smiling to the camera, even though he knows the latter doesn't share the house with them.

When his eyes catch a few fire manuals on the bookshelf, he smiles to himself, can't help it, knowing it has to be her doing. Then he walks away, leaving the examination to a different time, and knocks softly on her door. "Andy?" He whispers her name, letting her know of his presence, leaving her with the choice to welcome him in, or push him away.

She looks up at him when she opens the door, and behind him stands Maya, who mouths something incoherent Andy can't possibly understand.

"Captain." Andy uses his official title, then tries to signal Maya with her eyes that she is more than capable of handling the unexpected company. Maya raises her hands in the air, as if someone points a gun at her, then hurries to vanish and closes the door to her own bedroom behind her, giving them some kind of privacy, even though Andy is sure the blonde has her ear pressed against the wall that separates their bedrooms as she is trying to eavesdrop.

"I thought we said that outside of work we can use each other's first name." He pouts. Robert leans against the doorframe, doesn't invade her personal space without an invitation, one she is yet to grant him.

"Robert." Andy corrects herself. And there it is, that small smile, the one that appears in his dreams more often than not, especially when he is trying with all of his might to think of anything else. "To what do I owe the unexpected visit?" She asks. "Is Liv alright?"

She hasn't seen much of the girl in the last few shifts, as she was obviously still agitated with her dad and tried to keep away from him as much as she possibly could, which is not a hard thing to do, considering he spends more time in his office in the station rather than anywhere else.

Andy wonders what he eats when Liv is not around to make sure he is well fed and nourished, but she keeps that inquiry to herself, doesn't want to spark the argument again, especially when it seems like it is finally subsided into something more tolerable.

"Yeah she is fine. Being a normal teenager, but that will pass, I guess, even though I don't think I have ever seen her acting like that." He pulls at his shoulders. He remembers what it is like, being a teenager himself, even if he didn't have much time to make a sour face toward his parents every time something didn't go the way he wanted it to end up, not when the both of them died when he was around Liv's age, and he was left to his own devices in the world. "I came because we had plans for tonight." Andy gives him a crooked look, then he reminds her. "Today is Saturday. And we are both off shift."

"Oh." Andy lets out, some heat trickling up to her face, and she hopes she doesn't turn red when she says. "I wasn't aware this is something that is still on. You know, with everything that happened after the night I came up with the idea."

She didn't plan on heading out, Robert can tell that much by the way she is dressed. A pair of slippers, and shorts that reveal quite a lot of her long, smooth legs. He has to swallow hard, has to keep the image of him running his fingernails slowly up and down those thighs as she arches her back and shifts her weight toward his touch.

"Is this my hoodie you're wearing?" Robert lifts his eyebrow in her direction, questioning.

She looks embarrassed, her gaze locks on the ground when she admits. "It is." And then she adds, in a hurry. "I meant to give it back, just didn't find the right time to do so until now."

"Keep it." He calls before he has a chance to think it through. "I have plenty of items just like this one. Besides, Liv has been telling me for a while now that I need to change my wardrobe a bit, so she will be excited to know I now officially own one less hoodie."

"Thank you." Andy smiles, wrapping herself tighter in the large garment. "You don't have to do it, but thank you." Over the past months she learnt that he is stubborn, much like herself, and she doesn't plan to argue. And if she is frank with herself, she is quite fond of the newest clothing item in her closet, wearing the hoodie way too often when no one is there to look, and doesn't wash it as much as she needs to, probably.

Robert watches her for a moment, still hanging by the door, reluctant to invade into her personal space. "What is it?" She asks when she decides she has had enough of the silence.

"I just think that you should earn the hoodie, you know."

"And what do I have to do in return?" She smiles at him mischievously.

God, that half grin does things for him, things he isn't willing to admit, not even to himself. "Let me buy you a drink, like you suggested. That is, of course, if you don't have any other plans. I would hate it if Bishop is left alone because I take over all of your free time."

"I am sure Maya will be fine watching Keeping Up With The Kardashians all by herself this Saturday night." Andy smiles. "Now turn around." When he looks at her with an off-sided glare, she explains. "If we are heading out, I need to change." She orders.

He does just that, but his curiosity is taking the better part of him. She is so close, and she is shedding her clothes off, piece by piece, and he can't help himself. He turns his head just slightly, and she is standing with her back to him, so he doesn't see much of anything, really. Or that's what he likes to say to himself, because she is fifteen years younger than him, and he is her boss, and he can't watch her getting undressed. He bites down on his lower lip, hard, as he manages to take a glimpse of the back of her legs and curve of her waist and her shoulders.

She is beautiful, and his heart is racing to the sight of her.

He turns back just in time, watching the wall in front of him, because not a moment later she is all dressed, telling him. "You can turn back around now." She isn't wearing anything fancy, since they are not headed anywhere fancy, not by a long shot. And besides, it is not a date, just a meeting between two friends, so there is no reason for her to dress up, especially not on his account, he knows that much.

But the fact she is dressed in a burgundy colored sweater and a pair of light wash jeans doesn't take any of her beauty away. He watches her tentatively as she places rings on her fingers and zips up her boots, before she grabs her necklace and heads to him. "Can you help me with that?" 

She turns around and holds her hair up in one hand as he fulfills her request. He helps her clasp the necklace, even though he has a feeling she doesn't really need his help with that particular task. He is done in a blink of an eye, but his hands linger, traveling from her nape slowly down the back of her neck.

Her breath catches in her throat as she feels his light touch keeps its journey down her shoulders, and it is something filled with tension, even though he doesn't touch her anywhere that might be considered inappropriate. "Robert." She breaths his name out as she turns around to face him.

And suddenly they are close, really close, close enough for her to feel how warm his breath is and how his cologne has a woodsy undertone to it. Close enough for her to shift her weight forward and kiss him, if she wanted to.

Not that she thinks about kissing him. Of course not.

"Give me ten minutes to put a little bit of makeup on, and then we will head out."

"You are beautiful with or without it, you know that much, right?" He asks as he pushes a piece of stray hair that fell on her face behind her ear, and she feels those little zings of electricity everywhere his fingers hover.

He is in her bedroom, where there is a bed and a door that locks and a roommate she knows will spy, but will be happy for her. And it has to stop, he has to stop, because if things will progress further from where they are now, they won't be going anywhere tonight. "Men." Andy snorts as she finally finds it in herself to disconnect her body from his. "Always think that whatever it is we do is for them."

She misses his touch already as she drifts away, but she won't let herself get any closer. Instead, she goes through her small make up bag, trying to find her foundation and her Beautyblender. It isn't as if she owns drawers upon drawers full of makeup anyway, not when the occasions she wears it are rare and far from each other.

Robert leaves his spot by the door and makes his way to her bed, where he grabs her pillow and throws it in her face. Luckily for him, he does so before she has a chance to start on her makeup, so no harm is done, not really. Still, she turns around with a grumpy expression, asking him. "What was this all about?"

"For misinterpreting my words. I never said that you were doing anything for me. Or for any other man, for that matter."

"Fine." Andy huffs, and throws the pillow right back at him. When the object hits him right in the middle, he shifts his weight back and lets all of the air in his lungs out quite dramatically, which makes Andy smile again. She finds herself grinning around him way more often than she would like, and it makes her feel like a smitten school girl.

Not that she is smitten, of course.

"Now, let me finish this so we can head out." She orders.

She feels his eyes on her back as she goes through the familiar motions, brushes a little bit of highlighter on her cheekbones and paints her lips in a deep wine color that matches her sweater. The burning feeling of his gaze on her body makes her feel suddenly conscious, and she sneaks a glance here and there at him through the mirror she uses.

"About that shift..." Robert starts, but she cuts him mid sentence before he has a chance to say anything more.

"You are her father, Robert. If you think you know what's best for her, then who am I to argue? I have known her for a few months. You raised her all alone her entire life, and you did one hell of a good job."

She doesn't want to lie to him. Doesn't want to keep him in the dark and hide secrets from him, but what other choice does she have? Is she really going to ruin Liv's dream just because her dad might be a bit over protective? The SFD needs more women, especially resilient and strong minded ones like Olivia, and she can't take it away from her. She won't.

So all she has left to do is twist the truth a bit, even if it pains her like a knife straight to the gut when he whispers a "Thank you." just so.

"Are you ready to go?" He asks, and when she nods he steps out to the corridor, then leads the way to his car that is parked just outside her building.

He doesn't plan on drinking, then.

"Hot date tonight?" Andy gets a text from Maya right after she buckles herself in the front seat, and he turns the engine on with a roar.

"Not a date." Andy corrects her roommate as her fingers skim quickly above the screen of her phone. "Just two friends who are going to grab a drink."

"He came to pick you from the house. I consider it a date." Maya's answer comes a moment later with a loud ping.

"Not a date!" Andy types again. "We are going to Joe's, and I am going to wingwoman for him, helping him get a date with someone who is not me."

"Ok. Just so you know, though, if you find him between your legs tonight, you are not the wingwoman, you are the woman he dates. Try to keep it down if you come here, though. I need to go on a run early tomorrow morning." Andy snorts after she reads the last text the blonde sent in, then turns off her phone and shoves it into her pocket.

Her reaction ignites his curiosity, though, so when he asks. "Who was that?" Andy turns a light shade of red. Fortunately for her, his eyes are fixated on the road as they approach the bar, so he can't see her embarrassment evident on her face.

She is going to kill Maya. Again.

"It was my dad." Andy lies, and it twists her insides again. She really should stop hiding the truth from him, but what can she say? That Maya made some pretty inappropriate comments about the nature of their relationship once again? "He wanted to know when I will be free for a family dinner with him next week."

"You know, you can take a few hours off one of a shift if you need to." He suggests.

"That won't be necessary, but thank you." Andy whispers just as he kills the engine. She is about to let herself out of the car, but he is there on the passenger side before she has an opportunity to move, opening the door for her and holding his hand out, helping her out of the car.

"A true gentleman." Andy compliment, but doesn't take the hand reached out in her direction. She knows she will feel it again if she lets herself touch his skin, will feel the way her body cries out for him. She doesn't want it, doesn't want to feel the way her body comes alive with just the softest graze of his fingers against her wrist. "I can work with that. Now come on, let's find you a hot date."

They walk side by side until they enter the bar, surrounded by silence that surprisingly enough, is not uncomfortable by any means. Then he holds the door open for her, and she skips down the stairs, her boots making a tapping sound every time her feet land on the stone. They are quite early, the full blown stream of crowd didn't arrive just yet, and fortunately for them, they spot the last empty booth right as they enter the dim lit bar.

She slides right into it, but he lingers, hovering above the table, a bit too close to her to be appropriate to something she herself defined as a meeting between two friends. "What would you like to drink? A cocktail? A glass of wine?" He suggested.

"I am more of a beer kind of woman."

"Oh, going straight to the hard stuff, I see." Robert cracks a smile, one of the rare kind that she doesn't get to see too often, but lights up his entire face.

God, he is attractive, she will be a liar not to admit that much, even if it is just to herself.

"Two beers coming right up." Robert concludes and pushes himself away from her as he makes his way to the bar.

Andy watches him go, and bites down hard on her lower lip.

**********

"What about her?" Andy asks, glancing at a woman who stands by the bar with a few of her friends, or at least that is who Andy guesses they are. She is a real beauty, tall and elegant and has waves upon waves of red hair that streams softly down her shoulders.

Robert shakes his head, and goes back to spinning his beer bottle in his hand, watching the bubbles raise inside the half finished drink. He paced himself, knowing he can't have much more than the one bottle, even though Andy is fairly sure the liquid has gone warm by now.

He paced himself, but she can't say the same for her. She downed her bottle of beer quite quickly, and when he suggested going to the bar and grabbing her a margarita, she didn't pose any objection. "Robert, you have been ruling out every single woman you have looked in her direction today. You can't keep going like that, or otherwise our plan won't work. I can't wingwoman for you if you don't want to go talk to any of the women."

If she is being frank with herself, she doesn't want him to go. Just the thought of him leaving her alone to go and flirt with another woman makes something dark and petty twist inside of her. And she has been enjoying herself immensely, liked the banter and the easy going back and forth, and the little teases they kept sending each other's way from time to time.

And it is fun, and easy going and comfortable, and even though the bar is jammed packed by now, it feels like other than her and Robert, there is no one around them. As if they are both surrounded by this bubble only the two of them can feel.

She doesn't want this night to end, and suddenly it does feel like a date.

Not that she can date him.

"Tell me about the weirdest call you have ever had." They have already covered all the getting to know each other questions, even though she keeps telling herself she is not the one being dated, just the one being a good friend. They went through hometowns and heritages, talked about the best place in Seattle to grab a slice of pizza and the most wonderful place they have ever visited in the whole entire world. He has met her father, and they work together so it isn't like they have anything new to say to each other in that area, and soon after that the conversation shifted into a more intimate area, breaking the tension every once in a while with a story that cracks the two of them up and makes them laugh until they can't breathe anymore, just like where he is headed right now.

"Oh, this one is easy." Andy lets out. Her glass is empty now, and he looks at her as she turns the straw along the edges. He looks at her, about to slip something out of his lips, and she swears to God, if he is going to offer to buy her another drink, she is going to have to confront him about trying to get her drunk.

Andy continues before he has a chance to suggest such a thing. "I wasn't a probie anymore, but I was still fairly the new girl, and I was assigned to aid car with Dean that shift. We got an aid car call at four in the morning, and when we arrived there, we saw a young kid on the road, lying completely still. To this day I have no idea what this kid was on, but as I leaned in to check if he was breathing, he sat right up and threw up his entire stomach content straight on to me. Miller had a good laugh, and I ended up smelling like vodka induced puke for an entire week. I will never forget what he told me after we finally made it back to the station. He said 'Herrera, this job stinks sometimes.'"

Her story has Robert rolling with laughter, has him holding on to his stomach, and has Andy biting "I am happy that you find it amusing." but the smile on her lips indicates that she is not really angry with him, not even one bit.

"What about her?" Andy suggests another woman who stands by the bar, alone this time. She is real pretty, like all the women Robert kept rejecting were. Andy thinks Robert knows she won't let him get away without even trying to get a phone number, so he sighs and raises himself from his seat in front of her, promising her "I will be back."

"Don't count on it." She shrugs, sending him a knowing, dirty smile.

She tells herself she won't mind at all if he goes home with that woman, not by the slightest. She is an adult, she can catch a Lyft back home on her own, and they are here exactly for this purpose, aren't they? He needs to put himself out there, needs to get back on the horse and maybe find someone to warm his bed tonight, or to keep him company for a longer period of time than that. But then, the thought of him leaving her in that bar to go sleep with a woman he just met makes her see red, makes her feel angry and quite possessive, even though she knows it doesn't make any sense. Even if she is trying to shake this awful feeling away with all her might.

And he is handsome, and he knows how to be charming if he wants to, and Andy knows that no woman who is attracted to men can resist him. She knows that if he was looking at her in a bar just so, she would have probably gone home with him, even if she is not one to do these kinds of things.

"Hey." The woman approaches Robert right after he orders another cocktail for Andy. He doesn't even have to lift a finger to have her standing by his side, standing close enough for him to know she is not looking for a friend.

"It's a bold move on your behalf, you know. Approaching a man who sits with another woman."

"What can I say? I am bold." Robert finally gets a good look at her. She is beautiful, and quite frankly, she is his type, even though he isn't very particular in that area. She is tall, has deep dark eyes and a wide smile on her face.

"Robert." He offers his name.

"Alyssa." The woman returns the favor, the smile never fading from her face. "So, was I wrong to approach you, even if you have a woman waiting for you by your table?" She is flirting, Robert has no doubt there, as he would say he is rather good at reading people, being in his line of work.

"No, you weren't." Robert admits, because there is nothing going on between him and Andy, nothing at all. "We are just friends."

"So, Robert..." Alyssa lowers her voice into a seductive whisper. "Do you think that your friend who sits near your table will mind terribly if we go somewhere a little more quiet, where we can get acquainted?" She is not playing around, then, she is forward and even a little bit blunt. For a moment the thought does cross Robert's mind. She is not unattractive, not by any means, and Robert won't mind spending the night with her, maybe just for tonight, and maybe she will turn out to be something more than that. And he said it himself time and again, he needs someone, needs something other than his hand and the cold five am showers. He needs a woman, and even if they leave now, that doesn't mean he needs to take her straight to bed with him.

But then something in the corner of his eye catches his attention, and suddenly he sees red, suddenly he is livid. He watches with clenched teeth as a strange young man makes his way toward the booth he is sharing with Andy, then slides in, uninvited, with two shot glasses, each in one hand. His vision becomes vague as he sees Andy's body shifting toward them man, the way she sends a flirting smile in his direction.

And he must have been staring too long, because next thing he knows, Alyssa mutters "I probably shouldn't have approached a guy who shares his table with another woman." and then she disappears, leaving him with his mouth open just a bit as he tries to process what exactly happens in front of him.

His body is taking control, and in a minute he is there again, by her, placing a hand on her shoulder in quite a possessive manner. He feels it again immediately after he touches her, the small currents of electricity at the base of his skull.

"Oh, I didn't realize you were here with someone, I am sorry man." The guy apologizes, then is quick to escape, leaving the two full glasses on their table.

"What was that about?" Andy pouts as Robert slides back into his spot. "You get to go home with her, but I don't get to flirt with anyone?"

"Not going to go home with anyone." Robert barks, the change in his mood quite drastic. "It didn't work out." And then, after quite a long, loaded silence, he suggests. "Can we just go home Andy? To be honest, I am not in the mood, and I don't think it is going to work out."

"Yeah, of course." Andy nods and lifts herself up to a standing position. She doesn't know what caused this change in his behavior, he was all warm and comfortable only a minute ago, and now he seems cold and distant, but she was there for him, truly, and if he wants to leave, then she will happily head home.

"Do you want to come by my place? I know Liv will be happy to see you, and I promise to drop you at your house before your bedtime. No more sleeping on my couch and waking up with a stiff neck, I promise."

"Sure." She lets out before she even has a chance to think this through. As Robert stands right next to her, Andy interlaces their fingers, and if they leave the bar with their hands entwined... Well, she doesn't mention it, and neither does he.


	11. Chapter 11- Pineapple on Pizza

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! I am gonna make it quick, I know some of you want more one shots, they will arrive eventually, but I need to rewatch the episodes a few times to really get inspired from the little things, so it might take a while. Also, I might update The One That Got Away two weeks in a row, so this story might take a tiny little break after this chapter.   
> Anyway, thanks for reading, and as always will have to hear your thoughts!

“Are you sure she is still awake?” Andy asks as Robert unlocks the door and opens it for her, as she tries to juggle the two pizza boxes in her hand.

They made a detour on their way to his house, stopping at her favorite pizza place in the entire city, right before it closed, being the last customers for the day who still managed to squeeze in an order. It wasn’t an easy task to convince him, but he gave in after quite a lot of pleading on her end, and a promise to order an entire pizza topped with pineapple, even though she absolutely despises it.

That’s how Andy finds herself in his house quite late on Saturday evening, carrying in the intoxicating smelling food. He reaches out to grab the takeaway boxes out of her hand as soon as the door is closed behind the both of them, and when his fingers brush lightly, unintentionally across the skin of her hand on the bottom of the stack, she feels it again, the little zings of electricity at the base of her skull.

“You know, I can carry them myself. They are not that heavy.” She notes, just as she did the first evening she spent in the exact same house.

“My house, my rules Andy. I just needed you to hold them for a moment so I will be able to open the door.” Robert places the two boxes on the kitchen isle, and opens the top one, grabs a cheesy slice and shoves it into his mouth ungracefully.

“You have all those rules about guests, but still, you didn’t offer me a slice before you served yourself.” Andy teases, crossing her arms against her chest.

“You can help yourself.” He shrugs, talking with his mouth full, and it makes Andy chuckle.

Oh, this man in front of her is so different from the captain she meets at work, day in and day out.

“To answer your question from earlier, yes, she is awake, I am sure of that.” He finally swallows, and then continues. “I am also sure she won’t come down here, because she is still angry with me, but she is awake, more often than not long after she is supposed to be asleep.”

Andy tries anyway, yelling “Liv, pizza!” into the air and waits for a reaction to come, any reaction, really, from the sixteen years old girl.

“Told you so.” Robert points out as neither of them hears any answer, shoving the last piece of his slice into his mouth and licks his fingers clean. “I know my daughter.”

“Well, I can guess who she inherited her stubbornness from.” Andy raises a brow in his direction.

“Claire. Definitely Claire.” He answers, which makes the both of them laugh shortly.

They are not flirting.

They can’t be flirting, because he is her captain, but it feels so easy, and comfortable, and right. It feels like flirting, but it’s not. Andy settles on calling that, and the conversation they had in the bar and on their way home, friendly banter, in the absence of a better definition.

Andy grabs the untouched pizza, holding on to it with both of her hands. “I am going to feed your daughter, even though I suspect she is more than capable of feeding herself. You are the one I worry about.”

She makes her way to the bottom of the stairs before she hears him calling out her name. She turns around, and sees concern in his eyes, no trace of the amusement that was there just a moment ago left. “Can you please try to explain to her? I know she will forgive me, eventually, but I just… I need things to go back to the way they used to be. I can’t lose her, and I know that you understand.”

Andy walks back, closing the distance between the two of them. She stabilizes the box against her hip with one hand, and the other comes up on instinct, brushing some invisible fluff from his shirt, in a way she hopes he finds relaxing, reassuring, and that she isn’t overstepping way into his personal space. “I will see what I can do. But as you said yourself, she is a stubborn kid, just like your wife was.”

Andy disconnects herself from him, and makes her way up the stairs, before either of them does or says something that will make it impossibly hard to step away.

“Special pizza delivery.” Andy knocks on the door of Liv’s bedroom.

The door swings open, and on the other side of it stands a grumpy Olivia. Andy can’t help but grin at the sight of the sixteen years old, wearing an oversized hoodie and a pair of sweats, looking like she has been standing in the middle of a tornado, even though the firefighter knows it isn’t the case. “Well, hello to you too, sunshine.”

Liv snatches the box out of Andy’s grip, the pout never disappearing from her face. “I don’t want to talk about him.” The sixteen years old is about to shut the door in her face, hoarding the food Andy very much desires, but Andy’s instincts are quick, and she steps in front of the door, in a manner that will prevent Liv from closing and keeping Andy outside of her bedroom.

“Well, I don’t want to talk about him either.” That’s a complete lie, she does want to talk about him, yet she wants to talk about him in a manner that will be completely inappropriate to the ears of a sixteen years old, and his daughter, nonetheless. “I just want to eat my pizza. The pizza that I bought, so you have to share.”

“I bet my dad didn’t let you pay for it.”

“Well, he didn’t, but that doesn’t make it any less my pizza.” Andy claims as she makes her way in the bedroom, only then realizing it is the first time she actually stepped foot in there. They usually find themselves in the living room, snuggling into blankets, sharing a bowl of popcorn, on days they don’t find themselves solely in the kitchen and by the dining table.

She has never been in the girl’s bedroom, and if she is honest with herself, she didn’t know what to expect. The room is clean and quite tidy. It has a desk and a bed, a vanity and a closet, all painted in shades of soft turquoise and white. It has been a long while since Andy was a teenager herself, but she remembers her own bedroom being a little bit more chaotic, with clothes piling up on the floor and text books thrown around, open, as if she has ever studied out of them.

The only decoration in the room are pictures, more pictures, just like they have in the living room. Pictures of Liv as a baby with her mother, and of older Liv with her dad, and pictures that seem to be taken more recently, of Liv squished among a large group of girl, who Andy can only assume were her friends back in Montana, because she confided her once and again about how she feels alone here in Seattle, about how she cannot seem to make any friends, no matter how much she tries.

“I am going to ask you one single, tiny thing about your father, and then I am going to leave you alone, I promise.” Andy tries as she makes her way into the bedroom, sitting on the bed, uninvited. Liv finds her spot right across from her, setting the box between the two of them and opens the lid, the aroma of freshly baked dough feels the room in an instant.

“Fine.” The girl agrees, ripping one slice out of the circle shaped pizza and taking a huge bite.

“What’s the deal with your father and pineapple on pizza? It’s off putting, really.” The girl’s expression finally, finally changes into a tomato sauce covered smile.

“I know.” She agrees. “Disgusting.”

Andy picks her own slice, and stays quiet, letting the silence do its thing, hoping the girl will fill it sooner rather than later.

Andy is halfway through her slice, nibbling on it in small bites when Olivia finally starts the conversation, letting her feelings out. “I am still mad at him.”

“I know.” Andy nods, because she does. “I can’t even start to count the times my father made decisions for me that made me furious, that made me want to scream at the top of my lunges and pull all my hair out. Did I tell you about the time he physically took the door to my bedroom out of its hinges?”

“He did what?” Liv’s eyes open wide at the statement, and Andy can see the girl is struggling not to choke on her food.

“Oh, he did. And I was older than you, I was almost twenty one. He just didn’t like the fact Ryan and I spent time with the door of my bedroom close, so he just decided to take it off completely. I swear, we didn’t even do anything past kissing.” Andy plays with a piece of cheese, looking down at whatever left of the slice in her hand as she mumbles. “Not that time, anyway.”

“Was he your first?” Liv asks, quite casually, as if she didn’t ask her one of the most intimate questions someone could ever ask her, as if she didn’t bring back so many memories just by putting this question out there in the open.

“I am not talking about this with you. No way.” Andy shakes her head, refusing to answer, taking another big bite, so she will have something to occupy her mind other than the answer to that question.

“Come on, I am sixteen years old, not six.” The girl insists. “Remember what you have been up to when you were sixteen?”

“Oh, I remember. Sometimes I think I even remember too well.” Andy answers.

“Then share. And then we can talk about my dad all you want.” Olivia looks suddenly curious. She is done with the last bit of her slice, and now she sits a little bit straighter, waiting for the story to be told.

“Fine.” Andy huffs. “I can’t believe I am talking about it with you. No, Ryan wasn’t my first boyfriend, and that’s all I am going to say.” Andy claims, even though she knows this isn’t the particular information the girl is searching for. “There was another boy, who I am not going to talk about.” Andy answers a question Liv didn’t ask, but it is well present in the way she looks at her. “I was around your age, he was a little older. Our paths separated after high school, and I have never seen him again. End of story.”

“And here I was expecting a little bit more of the juicy details.”

“Not gonna happen.” Andy refuses. “Anyway, back to the subject at hand, which is definitely not my first boyfriend.” Liv sighs her despair, and Andy continues, pretending she didn’t hear it. “My point is, that even though I did not agree with the way he chose to handle things, he is still my dad. I have Ryan, and I have the family that my dad built for me in the station, but he is the only one I share my blood with. And he loves me, I know that, as much as I know that your father loves you.”

“It still doesn’t mean he gets to control my life.” Liv mutters.

“Oh, believe me, I agree. But maybe, just maybe, try to talk to him? Hear him out?” Andy suggests. Now that she is done with her food, she brings her hand closer to Liv’s, covering her hand with hers.

“Since when are you such a big advocate for my dad? You were the one to suggest we keep training.”

“The offer still stands.” Andy promises. “I do understand where he comes from, but I said try to hear him out, I didn’t mean give up on all your dreams because he thinks you shouldn’t chase them.”

“Didn’t plan to.” Liv smiles.

Andy gives the girl a minute to think about it, and just adds. “I am here with you, for you, whatever you decide. If you want to keep training, we will find a way. But please, please don’t push him away because he made one decision you don’t agree with.”

“I won’t.” Liv finally promises, and something inside of Andy relaxes, now that she knows the father and the daughter will be alright, that they will mend things. “I just need a little bit more time.”

“Well, I think that it’s past your bedtime anyway.” Andy notes, as she starts to pack the box to get it downstairs to its proper place in the kitchen. If she is honest with herself, she isn’t sure how Robert let her bring the food up in the first place, as he is known for being overly tidy.

“Yes, mom.” Liv jokes.

It does something to Andy, twists something dark inside of her as she breathes out. “Don’t call me that.” It is supposed to be playful, supposed to be let out with a smile, but she can’t bring herself to crack one. She is not a mom material, definitely can’t be a mother figure to a sixteen years old. Yes, she is close with Olivia, but Andy has always considered her a friend, nothing more.

“I freaked you out.” Liv notices, being as observant as she is.

“No you didn’t.” Andy lies.

“Relax, okay?” Liv tries to reassure her. “I had a mom. Yes, she died a long time ago, and I don’t really have any memories of her, but she is still my mom, and I have no intention to replace her. So I am sorry about the joke, it won’t happen again.”

“Goodnight, Olivia.” Andy mumbles as she makes her way out of the bedroom. The atmosphere is suddenly weird, suddenly heavy, and she feels like she has to flee in order to alleviate the uncomfortable feeling she has, and the one she is sure the girl can sense.

“Goodnight Andy. I will see you at the station soon.” The girl promises just as Andy shuts the door behind her.

********

Andy shakes her head as she makes her way downstairs, trying to rid herself of the uncomfortable feeling.

“Are you okay?” Robert inquirers from his spot on the couch. He has a bottle of wine open and one glass already full on the coffee table before her feet even hit the ground of the living room. She is taken aback a bit by the way he can read her, by the way he knows something is not right just by the expression on her face.

“Are you trying to get me drunk, Robert Sullivan?” Andy asks, doesn’t answer his question, and instead tries to change the subject into something that will make the warm, easy banter from earlier continue.

“Well, I can’t drink, since I am the one who is supposed to take you home by the end of the day, but that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy a glass of Merlo.”

“You have an entire bottle open, and I already had a few drinks at Joe’s.” Andy points out. She finds her way into the same sofa he sits on, choosing a spot that might be considered a bit too close to sit next to someone who is just your friend. He doesn’t move though, doesn’t flinch, so Andy places the box carefully on top of both of their legs, between them.

“You have an entire pizza all to yourself.” Andy scolds as his fingers reach into the box to grab another slice.

“Well, it is so far away. This one is right here, close and in my reach.” She has a feeling he is not talking just about the pizza solely at the moment. They are sitting each with one leg on the sofa, and she can feel his knee as it grazes across hers.

Andy shifts her balance and reaches her hand out, grabbing the glass he poured for her by the leg and turns it around in her hand, before taking a large gulp of it, the warm, dark liquid feeling her senses and tingles its way down her throat. “Thank you.”

“I should be the one thanking you, really.” Robert looks down at the sofa, avoiding any eye contact, taking a sudden interest in his food. “She is great, but she can be a lot of work sometimes.”

“As far as teenagers go, I think you won the lottery.” Andy lets him know. She feels her body relaxing a bit as the effect of the wine starts to kick in, feels the light buzzing sensation as her head spins lightly. She is not drunk, and still aware of her actions, but it feels nice, so she lets herself not worry, for just one night. “I am sorry nothing came out from going to the bar. Apparently, I suck at wingwomaning.”

“The problem is not you, trust me.” Robert tries to reassure her. “I need to connect with someone before anything happens between us, so a bar is not the best place to meet a woman.” He looks up at that moment, right in her eye, and she feels his stare all the way down to her organs.

“Tell me about her.” Andy requests. She clears the box and the uneaten pizza it has in it, along with the little mountain of napkins they created as they tried to clean themselves of sauce and grease. She gives him time to think as she places the leftovers in the fridge and the trash on the counter, making a mental note to take it out with her before they leave. She puts her now empty glass away too, along with the bottle.

If they stay in her reach, she is afraid she will down the entire thing, and won’t even notice. She knows and trusts him, knows he will bring her home safely and help her into bed if it comes down to it.

It’s not that she doesn’t trust him. She doesn’t trust herself, she doesn’t know what will happen if she will drink enough to let her inhibitions go.

“Do you really want to hear about her?” Robert furrows his brow. “I am sure we can talk about something that won’t darken the mood as much as tales about my dead wife will.”

“Well, in order to help you, I need to find out what’s holding you back.” She sits back in her place on the sofa, yet this time she is even closer to him, lets herself immerse in the feeling of her entire skin tingling by sensing his body so close to hers. She takes a deep breath before she adds. “I really want you to be happy, Robert. You and Olivia.”

“I used to believe for years that my only chance at happiness was taken away from me the day I found my wife lifeless on that road.” He states. His hands move closer, and now they cover hers. His hands are soft and warm and so large compared to hers, she feels tiny at the moment.

“Wait, you were there when she died?” Andy’s eyes tear widely as she waits for an answer. It never comes, though, and she can feel his hand shaking above hers. She holds onto him before he has a chance to release himself from her grip, applying a little bit of pressure, trying to do something, anything to provide him with some comfort.

“I am sorry.” She apologies. “It probably brings up a lot of memories you wish stayed buried.”

“That’s okay.” He reassures. She is the one who is about to pull away this time, and he is the one to hold on, to make her linger.

The entire room hums with this thing they both feel when they are close to each other, but won’t name. He only lit up a few of the lights in the house as they walked in, so the living room is mostly dimmed and cozy. Andy feels warm and content. She feels like the only woman in the world at the exact moment.

“Your father was there, too.” Robert lets her now.

“My dad?” She questions.

“It was Claire’s birthday.” He sighs. He looks around for a moment, and she is about to tell him that he doesn’t have to share, doesn’t have to go and pick at an old scar on her account. Before she has a chance to do so, he continues. “It was her birthday, and Luke and I arrived at the car accident call, laughing and talking about our plans for the day. Your father was there, scolding us for taking so long to respond, even though he wasn’t our captain.”

“Why am I not surprised?” Andy questions, trying to lighten the mood.

“I recognized her car, and I ran toward her. She was dead on site, and if it wasn’t for who she was, we wouldn’t have bothered. But we tried and we tried until we arrived at Grey Sloan. The only thought in my mind during the entire time was that I cannot let my daughter grow without her mother, running over and over again like a movie stuck in that same horrible scene. The only thing running through my mind was that she couldn’t leave me, because I won’t know how to raise Olivia without her.”

“I am sorry.” Andy apologies again.

“It’s not your fault.”

“I am sorry for bringing it up.” She corrects.

“You didn’t. I did. You wanted to know something about her, I chose to tell you about the day she died. I could have told you about how she found the ring I bought her in my underwear drawer way before I had a chance to ask. She didn’t even pretend to be surprised, just let me know I am terrible at keeping secrets.”

Andy smiles now as he keeps telling stories about his late wife, interlacing them with anecdotes from Liv’s first year of life. She smiles, but it twists something inside of her, hearing about a time when he was so happy, seeing how his eyes glisten as he talks about her.

You only get one love story like this, she believes. Big and passionate and unique. You only get one love story like that, and if this love is taken away from you way too soon, way before you have a chance to say goodbye properly… Well, what are the chances he is going to be lucky enough to find not one love story like that on his time on earth, but two.

“I am going to stop boring you with my stories.” Robert states, bringing Andy back to reality.

“You are not boring me.” She insists.

“You are dozing.” He notes. She expects to see sadness on his face as he recalls the woman who was taken from him fifteen years ago, but his smile looks genuine and true, and it brightens the entire room in a way no lightbulb ever could.

“I am thinking.” She corrects.

“Care to share?”

“You said earlier that you used to believe that she was your only chance at happiness. Couldn’t help but notice it was in past tense, that’s all.” Andy shrugs, trying to brush it off. He couldn’t be talking about her. There is no way she is the one to give him the hope he has been searching for in fifteen long years, making his way in complete darkness.

“It didn’t occur to me I could be happy again without her until I moved back to Seattle. Apparently, I needed to go back to the place that took her away from me to actually let her go. To let the past go.”

“And did you? Let go of the past?”

“I am getting there.” He promises.

They sit in silence for a long while, staring at each other, waiting for one of them to make a move.

“You have a little bit of tomato sauce right…” Andy reaches her thumb. “There.” It bothered her when he talked, but she couldn’t interrupt him, was too afraid that he would close himself off if she just gave him the chance.

It feels like someone knocked the air out of her lungs when the pad of her thumb touches the outer corner of his mouth. Her finger continues its journey, traveling slowly, across his lower lip, her motion soft, so soft they can barely feel it, but it's there as they look deep into each other’s eyes.

She can’t breathe.

Her thumb travels to his cheek, brushes lightly there.

She isn’t sure who makes the first move, isn’t sure who was the one to close the gap between them and initiate their closeness, but suddenly his lips are on hers.

It is the softest kiss she has ever shared with a man before, something sweet and lingering. At first it is just the motion of lips against lips, but when his tongue trails out and licks, begging for entrance, she opens her mouth just slightly.

Their tongues are dancing with each other, and her other hand, the one that is not on his face, comes up to grab the fabric of his sweater. He tastes sweet, his lips soft and only scratching the delicate skin on her face slightly with his stubble.

She doesn’t know who was the one to initiate the kiss, but he is the one to break it, pressing his forehead against hers and breathing heavily into the space between them.

It’s a good thing to know she isn’t the only one to be extremely affected by this kiss, then.

But then, then she hears the one thing she didn’t plan on hearing. “We can’t.” He whispers.

He is right, her mind knows he is right. Her body, on the other hand tells her that something that felt so right, something that felt so good, cannot be wrong.

“Don’t you want to?” She asks softly, her voice barely audible, even though the room is completely quiet.

“I do.” He admits. “But we can’t.” He shakes his head.

Only then does Andy understand that her hand is still gripping his shirt, holding him close to her. She is reluctant to let him go, doesn’t want to lose the heat and the comfortable sensation of having him near. But she has to respect his wishes, and he is right after all. This can’t happen. Not now, not ever again. Not as long he is superior to her, and the critical, life and death calls he makes on scene might be affected by the way they feel about each other.

“I think it’s best if we could stay friends? I would hate to lose you over some stupid slip.”

A slip. That’s how he sees kissing her. Good to know.

“Friends.” Andy nods, trying to hide how hurt she feels, even when she knows it is stupid and petty. They haven’t done anything, so she has no reason to be angry at him. If anything, she should be thankful, because he had stopped it before it had any chance to escalate into something the both of them are going to be scolded for. “And as a friend, can you please take me back home? It’s getting late. I am going to turn into a pumpkin soon.” She chuckles, even though the last thing she feels like at the moment is cracking jokes.

How could she have read the situation so wrong?

The journey to her house is silent, as Andy cracks up the volume of the music in his car, hoping that the sounds of the song will prevent any thoughts from forming in her mind, from scolding herself for being stupid enough that she thought she could kiss her boss. That she thought that he felt that too, that it wasn’t all just in her imagination.

“Goodnight.” She murmurs hurriedly as she is about to open the door and leave the car, as soon as he comes into a stop in front of her building.

“Hey.” He lets out, gripping her arms. He places a soft kiss on her cheek, and whispers. “I really hope things can go back to the way they used to be.”

“Sure.” Andy huffs, even though she hates him at the moment. Even though she wants to lock her lips with his again, wants nothing but to feel his warm mouth on hers.

She doesn’t hear the goodnight he says behind her, is too far gone at the moment.

When she opens the door to her apartment and rushes to her bedroom, she can still feel his kiss on her lips, and on her cheek.


	12. Chapter 12 - Days Off

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! Thank you all for reading and leaving comments. I really hope that you are enjoying reading my fics : )

Andy hears the water in the shower running.

She waits a few minutes, hiding behind the closed door of her bedroom as she listens to the sounds of Maya's very loud morning routine. She is careful, and only when she is sure her roommate is busy enough with her own business and the two of them won't accidentally cross paths, does she make her way to the kitchen, tiptoeing all across the hall, which seems long and endless at the moment.

Her footsteps make too much noise, as the floor squeaks under her bare feet with every step she takes. She can hear nothing but the sound of her roommate opening and closing drawers in the bathroom, as she finally, finally reaches her destination.

Andy curses under her breath for a moment as she realizes that Maya has been hiding her box of Lucky Charms once again. She frowns, and makes a mental note to scold her friend for trying to take away the one thing that gives Andy true happiness, before she gets to the task at hand. She opens every cupboard and peeks in every cabinet, trying to find the red carton box, yet it is all in vain.

She hates Maya for doing that, hates her for her need to make everyone do things her way and for the way she treats her like a child who needs to learn what is good or bad for her body. Well, at the moment, the last thing Andy cares about is her health, and a protein smoothie won't give her the comfort she needs, the comfort she knows she will find at the bottom of her favorite crappy, sugary cereal box.

She lets out a loud exhale, filled with her frustration as she is about to give up and make her way quickly back into her bedroom, before Maya has a chance to see her snooping around the kitchen. Then she locates it, hiding on top of the fridge, where she didn't even think to search. Andy tries to get to the box, as she reaches her hand out and puts everything she has in her to grab what she needs.

There is a long sigh of frustration coming out of her as she realizes there is no way she is going to get there, not with her five feet and five inches, not without a little bit of help. The chair she drags across the little kitchen makes too much noise, as everything seems to do this morning, no matter how hard she tries to keep it down.

Andy climbs on top of it, and lets out an excited noise, something so small it is inaudible, really. She is about to disappear, about to take the box and go munch on the entire thing as she sits in her bed and catches up with the Kardashians, until she will have an unavoidable sugar rush and won't be able to listen to Kim's voice from a mile away.

"What are you doing?" The voice behind her startles her, and she loses her balance. She is quick to hold onto something, and manages to find her stability once again.

"Don't ever come behind someone like that!" Andy yells, her heart racing in her chest, even though she isn't sure why.

It is just Maya, after all.

"What are you doing?" Maya asks again, as she tries to figure out what her friend is exactly up to. "And why aren't you ready and dressed? We are going to be late for work, and I know you are in Sullivan's good graces more often than not these days, but I can't say the same thing about me, and I would really hate it if you will make us both late, and I will have to be the one cleaning the toilet for an entire week."

It never crossed Andy's mind until that very moment that she will have to explain it to Maya, the reason she is staying at the apartment for the day instead of going to work. She was too busy with her quest to retrieve her favorite snack, and beforehand, with her self pity and the thoughts about last night that kept sneaking into her brain, no matter how hard she tried to push them away, no matter how hard she tried to move on.

He doesn't want the same thing as she does. That's all, as simple as that.

Andy pretends to cough, as she brings the hand not holding onto the box of cereal to cover her mouth. "I am sick." She lies, trying to get her voice to sound raspy and weak, but she fails miserably. "I already texted Sullivan and told him I am taking the day off."

"Turn around." Maya requests, and Andy has a feeling the blond doesn't believe a word she just said, not even for a minute.

Andy steps down from the chair, and stares down at the floor as her friend examines her head to toe, waiting for a verdict. "Sick my ass." Maya finally calls, and Andy hates it sometimes, how well her friend knows her, how she can pick up on the little details. "You haven't called a sick day voluntarily since the day we met, Andy, not even once. Your dad had to force you to leave the station when you arrived with a 102 fever, and even then you had a thirty minute long argument with him about it in Spanish."

"I am really sick. I might be contagious, you don't wanna stand so close to me. I think I got it from the kid we transported in the aid car last shift." She coughs again, but when she sees her friend doesn't buy her façade, she gives up, reaching her hand into the box and grabbing a mouthful of cereal, then shoves it into her face gracelessly.

"Andy, that kid had a broken leg. I doubt you caught anything from him." Maya makes a snarky comment. The kitchen is silent for a moment, and there is a little flicker of hope that ignites inside of her. Maybe Maya will just decide to drop it, and leave Andy to spend the day in bed, drowning whatever it is that she feels at the bottom of the Lucky Charm box she has in her hands. "You reek of heartbreak." Maya decides.

"No I don't!"

"Who is it? Who broke your heart, and do you need me to go punch him? Cause you know I will do it, gladly." Maya asks. When she doesn't get an answer, and the only sound in the room is the noise Andy makes as she chews on the crunchy cereal, she just starts to guess, throwing names into the air. "Is it Jack? Ryan?"

"It's no one, really." And insists, her mouth still half full. "Give it a break, Maya. I just don't feel well, so I decided to take the day off.

"Is it Sullivan?"

Something in Andy's face must have twitched, must have shifted involuntarily, because when Maya says again "It is Sullivan." it's more of a statement rather than a question.

"Oh, Andy."

"I don't need your pity." Andy insists. She knows it's not fair, shutting her friend out like that, pushing her away, but she can't bring herself to do anything but that. It isn't like she wants to talk about it, anyway. "I need my cereal and my trashy TV shows, so you can go to work, I will be more than fine on my own."

Maya will have none of it, though, as she sits on the couch and crosses her legs, waiting for her friend to say what's on her heart.

"You will be late for work." Andy tries to reason. "You just said you want to be on time. You are seriously risking toilet cleaning duty here." Maya is quiet, unusually so, and Andy just blurts out the next sentence, can't help it. "I didn't sleep with him."

"Andy, I honestly don't care who you sleep with, I care that something is obviously on your mind, and you still don't talk to me about it."

"I didn't sleep with him, so there is nothing to talk about. Nothing happened." Andy insists. She is about to walk into her bedroom, but Maya is quick to understand her intentions, as she stands in front of her and grabs the box out of her hand. "Hey!" She yells. "What was that for?"

"You won't get it back until you talk. Friends don't let friends eat their feelings all alone." Maya shoves her hand in the box, then places a few bites of cereal in her mouth and chews pointedly, her brow raised at her best friend all the time, defying.

"It was just a kiss, okay?" Andy huffs, finally letting out the one thing on her heart go. She knows sharing is supposed to make her feel better, or so they say in all those stupid self help book, but it doesn't. In fact, it does the exact opposite, really. It makes her heart ache as she remembers how right that moment felt, before he cut it short. "It was just a kiss, and he stopped it before it had time to really become anything more than a kiss."

"But you wanted it to become more?" Maya asks. It has a certain tone to it, and Andy knows exactly what her friend is implying when she says those words. Yet it is playful, and Andy knows she means no harm, as Maya will be the last person to judge her, so she picks up a cushion from the sofa and hits her friend playfully, then grabs what belongs to her out of Maya's hand.

"Hey!" Maya yells. "I didn't mean it like that! You know I am all for you getting your swagger back! It's been a while, really."

"Are you keeping track of how often I am getting laid?" Andy raises a brow. It would have been a weird conversation to have with anyone else but Maya, but it's just the two of them, and Andy knows that Maya will hold onto what she is about to say, knows it won't become another piece of gossip over eggs and bacon at breakfast this morning at the beanery. "Yes, if it was up to me, I would have let it become something more than a quick kiss. But you know what, I am glad it didn't." Andy tries to convince herself, spreading her limbs on the sofa, leaving just enough room for Maya to sit next to her. "Sleeping with my boss is not a good idea."

"Yeah, so why are you avoiding him like he has the plague or something?" Maya inquires.

"I am not avoiding him."

"You took the day off. And you and I both know you never take a day off."

"Well, what if I wanted to take the day to relax?" Maya gives her a look, stern and knowing, which breaks Andy and has her muttering. "Ok, fine, I don't think I will be able to look him in the eye." Andy lets out, then eats another few bites of her cereal.

"Well, you will have to figure out how to do so, because you can't keep hiding away in the apartment forever, and I know you don't wanna transfer to station 23, where no one ever showers and they never arrive to calls on time, just because your tongue has been in his mouth." 

"Oh hell no." Andy shakes her head, horrified by the thought of having to go to work, day in and day out, in any station other than her own. "I will learn how to cope with it, you know. Seeing him. But today, the only people I wanna see are the family on that trashy reality show."

"What about his daughter?" Maya asks. She looks down at her watch, and Andy knows she must be late, must have listened to Andy rumble on and on for far too long.

"Liv? She has been grumpy for the last week or so , but she is a teenager, and it will pass." Andy says. "Why?"

"You really haven't noticed, have you?" Maya asks, then mutters under her breath. "God, you can be so oblivious sometimes."

"Spill it, Maya."

"The girl looks at you like she plans to lock you and her dad in the same room together. I think she has her hopes up, and I was wondering if she saw something, that's all. It would be a shame if other than your heart, her heart will be broken in the process, too." Maya grabs her duffle bag from the floor and heads to the door. "She is quite a good cook, after all. I would hate it if she would stop cooking for us, and we will have to go back to Montgomery's veggie meatloaf."

"She doesn't look at us this way!" Andy calls out, but Maya is already long gone, leaving Andy with nothing but more thoughts to run around her head now.

Great. There will be three hearts broken in the process, then.

It crosses her mind that she shouldn't have let him in in the first place. How much easier it could have been if she kept that resentment in her heart, instead of the way her cheeks flush every time that thought about the way he played with her necklace comes to her mind, or the way they didn't let go of each other's hand as they made their way all the way from the dark bar to his place.

And she knows there isn't a good outcome to the direction those thoughts are carrying her, so she grabs her box of cereal and stumbles her way back to her bed, tucking herself under the covers and turning on the TV.

And if his face is the last thing she sees before she drifts back to her uneasy sleep, the fire in his eyes is the same as it was just before he kissed her last night... Well, she blames it on the ungodly amount of sugar she just consumed, and the words her best friend said right before she left.

**********

Andy stands outside the station, staring at the building.

It's funny, really, as she used to do the same little ceremony when she was just a teen, as she was about to walk in and talk to her father, knowing he is going to scold her for breaking curfew ones again, or give her a stern look for doing something he didn't approve of, being one thing or the other.

Her leg is thumping up and down on the pavement as she is considering her options.

It's just her headphones. She can workout without them, or she can skip the workout today all together and go back to that spot on the couch that probably got the shape of her body by now. She was going stir crazy at the house, even though it is barely past 5pm, and it has only been one day she had to stay away from the fire and the action.

But she has made it all the way to the station, and all she has to do is walk quickly to her locker, grab the small case and walk out of there before anyone has a chance to notice she is even there, and she will be under a flood of questions she really isn't in a mood to answer.

If she has any luck, any luck at all, he is probably in his office at the moment, his head looking down at a stack of papers, and he won't even acknowledge her presence before she runs out.

Andy takes a deep breath, and starts to make her detour all the way to the back of the station. She stops just in front of his office right after she walks in through the door, can't help the temptation as she sneaks just a quick glance to see if he is indeed there.

The blinds are open and the office stands empty, but Andy knows they are not on a call. She has been standing outside the station long enough, debating what to do, that if something had happened, she would have been the first to know. She sighs soundlessly, out of relief or out of frustration, she isn't sure, and makes it the rest of the way to her locker.

Her Airpods are in fact there, where she knew she left them, and she is quick to grab the case and shove it into the back pocket of the ripped jeans she is wearing. The way back looks infinite, every step she takes makes her heart beat louder, until she is sure the damn thing is gonna just pop out of her chest.

There is someone in her way, and she slams head first into his body.

She can't breathe, too afraid to look up, knowing that by doing so, she will get a confirmation to the one thing she already knows.

It is him.

Andy curses under her breath as she realizes her body is still pressed tight against his, neither of them wanting to be the first to take a step back, to break the connection, to let go of the way their bodies buzz lightly with feeling, even when nothing really happened between them.

"I didn't expect to see you here."

"I think I should go." They say in unison. She takes a step back, as he places a hand on his head.

He looks exactly as she feels. Confused. At a loss of words.

"This is awkward." The words slip out of her mouth. She scolds herself immediately for letting out something so stupid, something that makes the air between them even heavier. "I just came to pick up my headphones." She explains. "I forgot them when I walked out last shift."

"It doesn't have to be..." He trails off. "You can stay if you want." He has a clear bag in his hand, something Andy didn't notice until he picked it up to show it off, but now... Now she can smell it. Her nostrils are filled with the aroma of freshly cooked meal, and all of a sudden, her tummy grumbles, as it reminds her the only substance that she has eaten all day is that box of Lucky Charms.

"Now you can't say you aren't hungry." He sends a crooked smile her way.

And maybe she was wrong after all. Maybe they can be friends, even if she kissed him, and he pushed her away. Maybe things can go back to the way they used to be between them. Easy and comfortable and uncomplicated, before she had to let her feelings show on her sleeve and ruined the delicate dynamic they had. He holds the door to his office open, an invitation she can't decline, and she steps in before she has a chance to understand what she is doing.

Andy takes a seat on one side of his desk, as he occupies the other, and opens the container, still hot enough to have steam coming out of it.

"I guess it's Liv's doing?" Andy asks as he passes her a fork, before he digs in.

They are sharing, then.

"Mmm..." He hums with his mouth full. He has a little bit of sauce right next to the corner of his mouth once again, and it burns in her, the urge to reach her hand out and wipe it clean. She won't do it, not with the way things ended up for her last time she tried that particular move. Instead she shoves her fork into the container too, and then bites down on the food. "She was here a few minutes ago, you just missed her."

"So I guess that means you two made things right?" She asks once there isn't any more food in her mouth.

"I don't know what you said to her, but it clearly worked. She came downstairs today as if nothing happened and made pancakes for breakfast before I had to leave for the station." He admits, and then adds, in a voice that is just a tad bit lower. "Thank you."

"I am just glad I could be of service." She admits.

They sit in silence for a few minutes after that, each taking their turn as they reach out and take a bite, until their bellies are full and the container is left completely empty.

"She asked where you are, you know." Robert adds, as the silence between them becomes unbearable.

"And what did you answer? That I took the day off because I couldn't look you in the eye?" She hisses. It turns out more bitter than she intended it to be, has a bit of venom sent his way.

He was the one to stop her, but he never said that he did so out of lack of attraction, out of lack of want and desire. He never told her she was misreading the situation. Instead, he hid behind a set of rules and left her standing on the other side of them, confused and yes, maybe even a little heartbroken, just as Maya said she is.

And maybe he is so used to things being as they are, just him and Liv against the whole world, that he can't fathom opening his heart and letting someone else in.

"No, I told her you were out sick." He admits.

"And did she buy it?" Andy asks, her brow raised. She knows the answer to that one, just waits for a confirmation on his side.

"No, not even for a second." He shakes his head, and there it is again, that small, tiny smile, one she probably wouldn't have been able to detect when they first met, but now she is certain that it's there. "She just gave me that knowing look of hers, and told me that she knows you would have showed up to work exactly on the dot, even with a 102 fever."

And maybe her words didn't hurt him as deeply as she thinks they did. Maybe he just doesn't care.

"Well, you raised her." Andy shrugs. "You can't start saying now that she is too clever for her own good."

"It doesn't have to be like that, you know." He lets out, his words slow, his gaze looking down.

"Really, Robert?" She uses his first name. She is off duty, and besides, his tongue has been in her mouth. That must have put them on a first name basis. "Then how else can it be?"

She didn't know she still has all that resentment inside of her, bubbling, waiting for nothing but a crack to seep out.

"I really don't know." He looks frustrated, has his head in his hands and his elbows propped against the desk. "But I want to try. You were the first person I made friends with since I have been back in Seattle, and I would hate losing you."

And she can't see him like that, it has something twist inside of her, leaves a sour taste in her mouth as she confesses. "Well, I spent my day off in bed, eating an entire box of Lucky Charm and watching a whole season of Keeping Up With The Kardashians."

That does the trick, and he chuckles, letting out a true and genuine smile as his eyes widen and he refuses to believe her statement. "No way."

"Well, someone's daughter has been taking over all my free evenings. I needed some time to catch up on my favorite TV show."

"I can tell her to slow down on the dinner and movie invitation, if you want to." He suggests. His fork is between his fingers now, as he plays with it, even though there is no more food left to be consumed.

"I like coming over." She admits. "I wasn't really easy as a teenager." She confesses, and then changes her mind. "No, I was really, really hard. And I know now my dad just tried his best, but back then all I thought was that he is trying to cut off my wings and keep me in . I guess I had to watch the two of you to really appreciate the way he has been everything to me. A father, a mother, a friend, someone to lean on, a shoulder to cry on. I know I already said it, but you did a good job raising her."

"Well, I guess I can say the same for your dad, then." He chuckles. She is about to excuse herself, about to head back to her car when he adds. "Can we stay friends?" He asks.

"Friends." She nods, even though there is a tight knot inside her belly telling her there is no way she will be able to be around him and not want to feel the way his lips on hers made her entire body ignite with fire. "And as your friend, I feel like I am obligated to tell you that your face is covered with sauce."

He is quick to grab some napkins and cover his face, chuckling. "Well, you could have said it a little bit earlier, you know."

"Well, we weren't friends earlier. We are now." She smiles. His phone is vibrating, and he gives it a lengthy look, invested in the content of the text message he just got, whatever it might be. His whole expression changes in a split second, the smile gone, now making space for a pout, as his eyes squint.

"What is it?" She inquires. He looks concerned, and she has to repeat her question once again, as if he hasn't heard her the first time she spoke, even though her voice was loud and clear.

"A fire across town. It's a four alarm, and they can't seem to gain control over it."

"That means it will become a five alarm soon." Andy finishes his thought for him.

"Any moment now." He doesn't look at her, keeps staring down at his phone, probably waiting for an update that isn't coming.

A five alarm. Her body is buzzing with excitement at the thought of the heat, the smoke, the adrenaline rushing through her veins as she helps to clear out the civilians or put out the fire. "Can I...?" She starts to ask, but he cuts her off before she even has a moment to finish the sentence.

"Yeah, go get dressed, and maybe you will even have time to try those brownies Liv made. They are heavenly."

She runs back down to her locker, yet before she even has the time to button up her pants, the alarm goes off, calling them to the scene of the fire.

As Andy enters the engine, he opens the door to the ladder, and they just stare at each other, smiling knowingly, like the two of them are in on a secret they cannot share.

Maybe a good five alarm fire is all she needed, after all.


End file.
